Mom Shoots Baby Over Birth Defect; Kills Husband, Self

Distraught over her baby’s birth defect, a mother shot the boy in the head and killed her husband and herself, saying in a note that she did not want the 4-month-old to grow up deformed and brain-damaged.

While six of the family’s nine children slept upstairs Sunday morning, Sue Her, 32, shot her husband, Lee Moua, 40, as he slept on the living room floor.

Before turning the pistol on herself, she shot John Moua, who was in a bassinet in the living room. John, who was hospitalized in serious condition, has hydrocephalus, or water on the brain, a condition that causes an enlargement of the head and sometimes brain damage.

“I think that she thought that baby should not have lived, that the baby would have a difficult time in life,” said neighbor Leona Hansen. “It was not done out of rage or hate.”

Moua and Her came to the United States 20 years ago from Laos, where shame and stigma over a child’s birth defect are somewhat common, said Lee Pao Xiong, executive director of the Council on Asian Pacific Minnesotans.

“It’s not like the parents don’t love the child,” he said. “Some of the older people have self-defeating thoughts because they are not aware of the resources out there to help children.”

A note indicated Her was worried about her own physical and mental health, as well as her son’s condition, police said. Her’s family said she had kidney problems.

The family’s children, the oldest of whom is 17 or 18, were being cared for by relatives and friends.