Natalia Hitchcock Russian Wisconsin mother kills 8 year old son Oliver following paranoia and angst over ongoing war in Ukraine.
A Russian mother in Wisconsin is accused of strangling her 8-year-old son to death along with threatening to kill the rest of her family — following paranoia and terror over her homeland’s ongoing war on Ukraine, authorities said.
Natalia Aleksandrovna Hitchcock, 41, strangled Oliver on March 30 at the family’s Plank Trail Apartments residence, days after also trying to drown the boy’s 11-year-old brother in the bath, according to a criminal complaint filed Tuesday in Sheboygan County.
The older boy had found his brother’s lifeless body on the floor of his bedroom while ‘his mother was on the bed with a big knife,’ according to the complaint into first-degree murder and attempted murder charges.
The surviving boy’s screams woke their dad from a nap, as the father attempted to save Oliver, who was pronounced dead two days later, legal papers stated.
While he performed CPR, the man’s unhinged wife — who had no history of mental health problems — was ‘walking around the apartment with a knife, dazed, saying she was going to kill everyone in the house,’ the complaint stated.
Mother was increasingly becoming unhinged amid Ukraine war
The mom also tried to overdose on painkillers and stabbed herself in the chest in a bid to ‘cut her heart,’ she later told cops.
‘When asked if Hitchcock had any mental health concerns, [the husband] said, ‘She does now” — and detailed her paranoia over the ongoing war on in Ukraine.
The husband told cops that he was ‘was worried about Hitchcock’s mental state of mind as she watched TV with the war between Russia and Ukraine.’
Her parents were still in Russia and she was furious that she could not book flights to get home to see them, the complaint stated.
In the days before killing her son, Hitchcock asked her husband to stay home from work and ‘buy survival gear such as a camping stove and fuel and also wanted to buy knives and guns,’ legal documents stated.
The husband ‘said no to the knives and guns,’ but bought food and other supplies to make his wife ‘feel safe,’ according to documents.
‘He said that he felt the war between Russia and Ukraine amped up Hitchcock more than ever and that she started to drink’ vodka.
Mother claimed fearing her son would be abused
The mother is alleged to have been terrified that ‘people were going to be coming from a bigger city to attack them’ or even sell them on the dark web, the husband said.
Hitchcock reiterated her concerns with police, saying she had been unable to sleep and feared the ‘Russian government was going to take her children and abuse them.’
‘She also said that people had been looking at her strange and felt that people looked at her as a Russian spy, which caused her to feel that social workers were going to take her kids from her,’ the complaint stated.
The mother allegedly said she killed her son ‘because she did not want to see him be abused,’ the complaint stated.
She said when she previously held her 11-year-old son’s head under the water in the bath, it was ‘to scare him so that he would understand his life was in danger.’
‘She said that she told the boys they needed to wake up and needed to see what was going on around them,’ the complaint stated.
‘I’m so sorry. I don’t know what happened,’
The mother said she felt Oliver ‘would be better off dead’ rather than be abused over the Russian war, the complaint alleged.
Hitchcock appeared in Sheboygan County Court on Tuesday, looking back to speak to her ‘visibly emotional’ husband, TMJ4 reported.
‘I’m so sorry. I don’t know what happened,’ Hitchcock told him, according to the outlet.
She is being held on $1 million bond ahead of her next court hearing scheduled for Thursday.
