31. Taking Overprotective Mothering to New Depths
Ivy Cogdon pled not guilty to the death of her daughter on grounds that she was sleepwalking at the time, and was thus unaware of her actions. At a coroner’s inquest, a psychiatrist testified that he thought Ivy was a somnambulist or sleepwalker. As described by other doctors who had been treating her prior to Pat’s death, Ivy’s medical history included powerful night terrors, and they had described her as a “hysterical type” prone to blackouts and somnambulism. Their conclusion was that Mrs. Cogdon would not have known what she was doing when she killed her daughter.
At trial, she testified that of her many fears, her greatest was the recently started Korean War, and how she would protect her family from invading Korean soldiers. She was particularly worried that the invaders would “pollute” her daughter. On the night of Pat’s death, those fears were exacerbated and made more vivid when Ivy’s daughter told her that she would volunteer as a transport driver if the Koreans invaded Australia.
