Teen's Suicide Blamed on Mother's Drug Addiction

A teenager's suicide is being blamed on his mother's drug addiction, and now the 40-year-old womanis facing charges! Sixteen-year-old Charles Howard had struggled with depression, it seems, but allthat escalated to the point of him taking his own life in July. It's tragic that the teen's death came theway it did, and the details surrounding this whole case indicate that he was suffering in lifeunnecessarily.

The mother of Charles Howard, Sabrina A. Howard, 40, wasarrested on Monday. Apparently there is a law on the books in Indiana regarding "causing suicide."That's nifty.

Apparently Charles had previously threatened to kill himself and was worried that his mother's ownaddiction to opiates would eventually kill her. So that drove him to kill himself? Seems unlikely,right?

Anyway, the day he killed himself, Sabrina confronted her son about pills being taken from herstash. These medications included Xanax and Lortabs. He denied stealing the drugs, but was acting"groggy" when he did so. This caused her to suspect he was lying. So she told him that the pills hestole could kill him if he took them. At no point did she take her 16-year-old son to an emergencyroom, nor did she dial 911. Instead, she checked on him throughout the day while he laid "asleep" onthe couch.

Eight hours after he obviously took her pills, she finally called 911. It took finding him dead on hercouch at 4:45 p.m., to do so. Again, at no point did she dial 911 during the course of the eight hoursthat he was slowly dying of a drug overdose. So forget the charges stemming from causing him totake his own life. She neglected her son, and she watched him die doing nothing about it. Why?Because she is a filthy drug addict who was reportedly seen as recently as this week with fresh trackmarks on her body.

This isn't the only suicide-related story in the news this week. It was also released this week thatLinnea Lomax, a missing California student, was found to have hanged herself. She was discoveredby her own mother just like Charles Howard, but these cases apparently aren't similar in theresponsibility of the parents. It's arguable whether the details in 3 DaysDetox Center in New Jerseythe Linnea Lomax death all add up, so both this case and that one are mysterious.

Crime analyst and profiler Chelsea Hoffman can be found on The Huffington Post, Chelsea Hoffman:Case to Case and many other outlets. Follow @TheRealChelseaH on Twitter or click here to contactChelsea directly.