Woman Found Bodies on Farm Where She Lives
By Katherine Shaver and Darragh Johnson
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, April 5, 2007
Gerardo Roque, a horse farm worker recently estranged from his girlfriend, killed their two young children by hanging them from tree limbs on a farm in upper Montgomery County, then committed suicide the same way, police said yesterday.
County police said Roque, 35, killed himself, son Carlos Diego Danforth, 1, and daughter Maria Socorro Danforth, 2, on Tuesday afternoon in woods about 100 yards from the 16700 block of Barnesville Road in Boyds. The killings occurred on Good News Farm, where the children's mother, Carol Danforth, 42, lives and works, giving riding lessons and helping to manage the stables, police and neighbors said.
Roque and Danforth lived together on the farm until about two weeks ago, when she ended the relationship and asked him to move out, said Officer Melanie Hadley.
"He was distraught because of the relationship coming to an end," Hadley said. "That may have triggered something."
Police said Roque picked up the children from day care about 2:30 p.m., as part of an agreement with their mother. About 3 p.m., police said, he called her and said he was going to hurt the children. He gave her a location on the farm and said something to the effect of "You're going to find us," Hadley said.
Danforth, who was on the farm when Roque called, drove a pickup to the area, saw Roque's truck parked along the two-lane Barnesville Road and followed a path into the woods, police said.
At 3:11 p.m., Danforth called 911 to report a suicide. Officers followed the path and the mother's screams to find the bodies, police said. Officers tried cardiopulmonary resuscitation on the children, but they were dead, police said.
Employees at Good News Farm declined to comment yesterday. A client estimated the farm at about 125 acres, and a neighbor said there are several houses and at least one trailer on the property. A man in a truck waited by the grassy hill at the stable entrance yesterday, guarding the road and turning away cars all afternoon.
Danforth had worked at the farm "a long time" and "most everyone knew her," said a neighbor, who requested anonymity out of respect for Danforth's privacy. Police said Roque used to work at Good News Farm but recently began working at another farm nearby.
Roque's relatives, who live on a horse farm in North Potomac, declined to talk yesterday. A brother, Roberto Roque, paused on his way into his driveway, just past the stables and a farrier pounding horseshoes at the Potomac Horse Center.
Rolling down the window of his pickup truck, he said in Spanish, "I can't talk," his red eyes welling. In the passenger seat, a boy lowered his head and sniffled.
A woman who answered the phone at the Potomac Horse Center said, "We have no comment about this at all, and have nothing to do with it." She declined to give her name.
Area residents have been wondering what could lead people to kill their own children. Barely a week ago, four children were found dead in their Frederick home, with their father hanging from a banister.
"Everybody's talking about it; it's very sad," said Ben Bowman, 20, as he climbed into a truck filled with hay outside Boyds Country Store, down the road from Good News Farm. Bowman said he works at nearby Miller Excavating, where talk centered on the deaths. "How could somebody kill kids like that? It's just -- I don't know what things people have go through their mind, but it's not very human-like," he said.
Forensic psychiatrists say murder-suicides that include children often stem from psychosis or a desire for revenge. Women who carry them out are more often psychotic and delusional, while men are more likely to act out of jealous rages, psychiatrists said.
Neil Blumberg, a Baltimore area forensic psychiatrist, said he has interviewed men who killed their children but survived the suicide attempt. He said many have personality disorders or childhood-based emotional problems that impair their ability to deal with rejection.
"They want to inflict pain like they feel the woman inflicted upon them," Blumberg said. "What's the most horrible thing you can do to a woman with children but kill the children?"
Staff researchers Lucy Shackelford, Julie Tate and Eddy Palanzo and staff writer Aruna Jain contributed to this report.
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