Under the Hat: Unthinkable - WICU12/WSEE Erie, PA News, Sports, Weather and Events

Under the Hat: Unthinkable

Each week I aim to fill one minute and 47 seconds of air time talking about what hopefully we're all talking about each week.

But how much time does it take to explain the unthinkable?

When firefighters responding to a nearby call find the remains of a 14-month old toddler in a suitcase we are already in the realm of the tragic.

When hours later the little girl's own mother is arrested and the coroner says the cause of death is nutritional neglect, we really are in the world of the unexplainable.

For apparently having no interest in being a mother, Tania Coleman has certainly been at it a lot, now pregnant with her fourth child before her 21^st birthday.

Regardless of circumstances, this is obviously a young woman ill-equipped for the responsibility of parenthood; she talks openly in social media of the joys of partying and playing video games even as she ignores her daughter Alayja into starvation.

Even after the toddler's death there is apparently no clue as to how to proceed.

Coleman and her boyfriend buy both a garbage can and a suitcase as a means of disposal, keeping the corpse for as much as a month trying to figure out what to do.

I can think of no biological imperative stronger than the bond between mother and child.

It is one of the core foundations of what makes us human beings.

I've certainly seen my share of self-centered behavior in my years on the street, but a mother ignoring her child to the point of starving to death is profoundly baffling.

Give me a minute and 47 seconds or 147 years and I might never fully understand what unravels the wiring in someone.

Now, with three other young lives at stake, society will no doubt step in to ensure that the unthinkable doesn't happen again.