One of those bizarre psycholog-ical mysteries that explodes out of the blue. A college lecturer, apparently contented and enjoying life, kills her two children and herself while her husband is working abroad. Why?It's the sort of totally unexpected event that leaves everyone stunned and aghast. Whatever was slowly eating away at her was carefully concealed from the outside world.
Neighbours, friends, relatives, clergy - none of them can explain what she did. According to them, Claudia Oakes-Green of Shepshed in Leicestershire always seemed bright and happy and doing well in life. There was nothing to suggest that some acute inner distress was about to tip her over the edge.
Whatever was troubling her - depression, financial worries, marital problems, workplace pressures - she was seemingly unable to confide in anyone else and seek outside help. She maintained a cheerful facade that hid a grimmer reality.
It takes a particularly distraught person not only to kill themselves but take their children with them, the children that up till then they've cherished and protected.
How tragic it is that people still feel so embarrassed and ashamed of their inability to cope that they simply cannot voice it. Or they feel their situation is just so hopeless that no one else can put it right.
We may find out more in the coming days. Some nagging anxiety may come to light. Some crippling sense of inadequacy may be revealed. Or her actions may remain a total puzzle, an endless source of conjecture and speculation with no one any the wiser.
The family: Claudia (44), husband Iain, son Thomas (13), daughter Eleanor (7)
Pic: The Oakes-Green house in Shepshed
