Updated Mon. Dec. 4 2006 12:44 AM ET

- The bodies of a woman and a young child remain on Highway 401 beneath the Morningside bridge in Toronto.

CTV.ca News Staff

Two people, a woman and a young child, are dead. The woman reportedly hurled the child to his death then jumped off an overpass herself onto Toronto's busy 401 highway.

They landed on the highway beneath the Morningside bridge in the city's northeast and were struck by at least one passing vehicle, reports indicate.

"I've seen some really horrific things in my career, but I don't know about something like this with a child," said OPP Const. David Woodford.

The woman apparently died at the scene, her body broken into separate pieces. The child, estimated to be four or five years old, was rushed to hospital but pronounced dead en route.

Police are conducting an investigation, but right now, they don't even know the relationship between the two individuals. They are trying to reconstruct what happened.

Parents from the area surrounding the scene flocked to the area. They looked to be in shock, reported CTV Toronto's Carol Charles.

"You never want to see these things happening, and you never want to see it happen to anyone. And to a little kid ...," one bystander told CTV Toronto.

A similar incident occurred in Toronto on March 5, 2005.

A father threw his young daughter onto the 401 then jumped himself. Miraculously, the girl survived without lasting physical injuries, but the father died.

With files from CTV Toronto

After reading this I almost wanted to throw up

But to take a childs life?

[b]UPDATE: -----


Police identify Toronto mother and child who died in murder-suicide plunge

at 22:23 on December 4, 2006, EST.
By TOBI COHEN

TORONTO (CP) - Toronto police have identified the mother and small boy who died in a murder-suicide after plunging off a Highway 401 overpass.

The woman is Andrea Johnson, 30, of Toronto and her son is two year old Sulla Genua. Police confirmed that it was a murder-suicide and said a family member contacted them Monday afternoon. Post-mortems concluded she died of multiple trauma after being struck by a number of cars, while a blow to the head killed the toddler.

Shocked police officers found the bodies in the westbound collector lanes in east-end Toronto at about 7:15 p.m. Sunday.

Johnson was pronounced dead at the scene.

Paramedics struggled to revive Sulla, but he was pronounced dead en route to hospital.

The public manner in which the two died is rare, said University of Toronto criminology professor Rosemary Gartner.

"Women will typically suffocate, drown their children or perhaps jump off a height, but typically not in a way that would injure other people," Gartner said. "This case is unusual in that sense."

While murder-suicide cases involving mothers and infants are often the result of postpartum depression, Gartner said the majority of cases actually involve older children.

Mothers, however, typically do have a history of mental illness, she said.

"I would estimate in at least 75 per cent of women who kill their children and kill themselves - easily over 75 per cent - there is either a history of psychiatric treatment, hospitalization, or strong evidence of severe depression or personality disorder or psychosis," she said.


©The Canadian Press, 2006

people get really sad and desperate, for a multitude of reasons...

depression & other mental maladies generally play a part. sad world we live in.

mental illness is so so sad. poor baby.

WHAT!!!!!????? This is horrible! What is with all of these parents killing their children?

Even if she was having problems, she didn't have to drag her child into it.

How disgusting.