A case of this kind involving intimate partner sexual abuse, domestic violence and child sexual abuse is that of Juana Leija, a Mexican woman living in Houston, Texas. She "was physically and sexually abused every day of her life and so were her kids." She sought help but "[e]very social organization…, except the church failed her and the church couldn't do much." (Interview by Chris Travis with Dick DeGuerin, Defense Attorney for Ms. Juana Leija, Burton, Texas, in The Roundtop Register at www.roundtop.com/DeGuerin.htm (last visited July 9, 2007).) She tried to drown her seven children and herself. Two of the children died. She said:
"I wanted to end my life and the lives of my children because I know that sooner or later my husband was going to kill me, and I didn't want my children to stay with him or someone else that was going to mistreat them. I know that my children would suffer if they stayed behind."
— Diane Mason, An Act of Love?, St. Petersburg Times (March 12, 1989) at 1F.
When the circumstances of her life became known, her attorney was able to present her case in the context of the legend of La Llorona the "weeping woman" of Mexican and Mexican-American culture, who drowned her child and herself when that seemed the only way out of an intolerable situation. Juana Leija was given a sentence of ten years probation and, with help from several agencies, was able to rebuild her life. (Diane Mason, An Act of Love?, St. Petersburg Times, March 12, 1989 at 1F.; Heinzelman, "Going Somewhere": Maternal Infanticide and the Ethics of Judgment , 1998.)
