Mother Stabs Her 14-Year-Old Son To Death

A mother stabbed her severely autistic son several times in the chest then nearly severed his hand slashing his wrist after she and the 14-year-old's godmother became overwhelmed caring for the boy day and night after taking him out of the hospital in March, police say.
Dorothy Spourdalakis had pleaded for financial help removing her son Alex from Loyal University Medical Center in Chicago, where she claimed he was neglected and abused.

Less than three months later, police say, Spourdalakis and his godmother and caretaker Jolanta Agatha Skrodzka could no longer handle round-the-clock care for Alex because they believed the 200-pound teen's 'emotional condition had worsened' since he was removed from the hospital.

The Chicago Tribune reports that Spourdalakis and Skrodzka planned a suicide pact in their cramped apartment above a plumber in River Grove, Illinois.

They first allegedly tried to kill Alex with sleeping pills. When that didn't work, police say, Alex's mother grabbed a kitchen knife and stabbed the teenage boy multiple times in the chest as he lay in bed, according to authorities. She then allegedly slashed the boy's wrist, nearly cutting off his hand.

Once Alex was dead, she handed the knife to Skrodzka, who used it to kill the family cat. A suicide note said the women killed the cat because they did not want to to go to a shelter.

The pair wiped off the knife and returned it to the butcher's block in the kitchen. The detailed their actions in a suicide note, according to authorities.

They then took sleeping pills with the intention of killing themselves and laid down in Alex's bedroom and locked the door, according to authorities.

The boy's father, who is separated from Spourdalakis, found Alex dead and the two women barely conscious after he went to the apartment when no one answered his repeated phone calls.

Spourdalakis, 50, and Skrodzka, 44, were taken to the hospital, where they were treated and then charged with first degree murder.

'The murder was committed in a cold, calculated and premeditated manner,' Assistant Cook County State’s Attorney Maureen O’Brien told the Tribune.

The two women began caring for Alex full time in March after Spourdalakis launched a public campaign to have her son removed from Loyola University Medical Center and enlisted the help of Age of Autism - an autism activism blog.