Mockingbird: A Mother, a Child, a Murder

by Gregg Olsen

Book Overview

Olsen delivers the chilling tale of a mother so desperate for attention that she murdered one of her children and repeatedly attempted to suffocate the other. This is the first book to focus on Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy, a disorder in which parents create fake illnesses in their children to receive attention from their families and medical practitioners.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0446600954
• ISBN13: 9780446600958
• Release Date: January 1995
• Publisher: Warner Books (NY)
• Length: 326 Pages
• Weight: 0.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 4.2" x 6.7"
• Age Range: 13 years and up

Customer Reviews

Tonto is crazy, Kemo Sabe

Cruel Deception succeeds in the face of two significant challenges. First, as topics go, "Mothers who kill" is depressing. Second, any book on the topic of Munchausen By Proxy stands in the shadow of Nancy Wright's great "A Mother's Trial. In the hands of true crime master Gregg Olsen this tale, while still full of horror, is downright uplifting and a worthy successor to Wright's book. Tanya Thaxted Reid - Tonto to her family - appears to be a typical small town girl at the start of the book. She wants nothing more than to live in the town she grew up in, have a doting husband and two perfect children. Under the surface things weren't so simple or typical. Tanya was the youngest of four girls raised by strict parents. Like many teens, Tanya wanted to stand out AND fit in. But Tanya lacks the will or personality or inner strength to make and stick to tough decisions. At times she seems unable to make any decisions. Except when there is a crisis. In the glare of ambulance lights and surrounded by concerned onlookers Tanya is pillar of calm, decisive strength. She isn't just at her best during a health crisis, she's most alive. At first it's impressive, then it's creepy and then it's scary. When her baby daughter has repeated episodes of apnea which ultimately take her life, it's a tragedy. Then her sons starts to have a have similar spells. EMTs, doctors and nurses, even neighbors all slowly come to the conclusion that something is wrong but none can articulate it. Or maybe they can't bring themselves to say it out loud: Tanya is purposely causing her children to stop breathing. That last sentence is tough even to type. It makes you want to take a shower just reading it so how impossible would it be to believe that someone who could do that would look and act normal. She should look like a monster. She should be a complete enigma. Gregg Olsen doesn't let us get off that easy. Olsen is unique among true crime writers in that he writes about the criminals not sympathy or admiration masquerading as disgust/details (you know you've read a few true crimes books where the author spends way too much time detailing the crimes themselves and the murderer's "brilliance" at evading capture) but with empathy. He tries to view events from their point of view. As a reader you find yourself not understanding Tanya but truly seeing her. She's lonely, she's desperate for attention - of the parental approval kind - and she's angry. Angry at her husband's lack of attention, angry that she's been dragged away from the only place she's ever wanted to live, angry that she's not accepted, angry that she can't have the career she wants, angry that she just can seem to crack the code of human interaction. Tanya is furious. She just can't show it. What keeps this from being unrelentingly depressing is the way Olsen balances Tanya's story with that of the people trying to stop her. Melodee Hardin is the anti-Tanya of the story. She's a successful attorney with a daughter

Murderous Munchausen Mother!

Tanya Thaxton Reid was a mother who almost got away with murder. When her infant daughter, Morgan, died at 9 months of age, the death was attributed to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. It was not until Tanya's young son began to suffer from a mysterious illness characterized by recurrent respiratory distress that medical personnel began to think the unthinkable. Was a mother making her own child ill to gain attention for herself? And, years earlier, did a baby die needlessly at the hands of her own mother? Gregg Olsen tells the riveting story of a young mother driven by overwhelming and compulsive obsessions to harm her own children. Oddly calm and unaffected each time emergency responders reached her home, Tanya would report that her son had suddenly stopped breathing and that she was forced to administer CPR to save his life. Had there not been so many 911 calls and unanswered questions about the child's misunderstood medical problems, Michael Reid may have eventually suffered the same fate as his sister. In a masterful collaberation by police investigators and prosecutors in two different states, Tanya Reid was finally brought to justice. In chilling black and white detail, using 911 call records as well as existing hospital admission records, an unmistakable pattern emerged that could not be reasonably explained or denied. On almost every documented occasion, Tanya Reid called emergency responders while her husband was at work and there were no other adults present in the home. In a pitiful and shameful attempt to remedy her own feelings of boredom and lonliness, Tanya forcibly smothered her son on multiple occasions. Once at the hospital, Tanya visited with the nursing staff and medical doctors as if greeting old friends. Odd behavior for a mother whose son was on the brink of death moments earlier. As the mother of 3 little girls, my youngest named Morgan, I was horrified by the images repeatedly witnessed by emergency medical responders. Sweating profusely and limp with exhaustion from the physical struggle of wrestling with his own mother, young Michael Reid gasped for breath and turned a terrified gaze upon his mother. Using the tried and true methods employed by other Munchausen by Proxy mothers, Tanya Reid used several different doctors and admitted Morgan and Michael to different hospitals to disguise her actions and obliterate any suspicious pattern of illness. In the end, her own odd behavior and her inability to stop smothering her son finally garnered more attention than Tanya Reid had anticipated... resulting in a felony conviction for child abuse and the long awaited conviction for the first degree murder of baby Morgan. Complete with a detailed history for this murderous mother and the denial that permeated her family of origin, Gregg Olsen writes a compelling story about deteriorating mental health, neediness, obsession, and the alarming behavior that defies the laws of nature and morality. True Crime lovers w

An absolute page-turner

I just reread this book and was delighted to find it was just as good on the fourth or fifth read as it was the first time. This true account of a Munchausen by proxy perpetrator is utterly fascinating. The author does a superb job of telling Morgan and Michael's stories from their mother's childhood to the inexorable conclusion. It is impossible to put down. I hope this page-turner educates people about the mysterious malady that MBP is and prevents other deaths in the future. Kudos, Mr. Olsen.

Cruel Deception

Wow, this mother in the book was truly troubled. To say the least!! To cause injury to your own child for the sole purpose of the fact that you need attention or you like the attention is really truly ill. The book baffled me to say the least, I'd only heard of cases of "Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy." I think the author describes it very well, but it's not too overly drawn out.

wonderful true crime book

this is a great book When it first came out it was written as "Mockingbird" and then is came back out at Cruel Deception. Gregg Olsen Is one of the best true crime writers there is. This is the true story of child killer Tanya Reid. If you are a true crime fan do read this great book. It doesn't matter which title. Gregg Olsen # 1 author.