Tysons CornerThere are good grandmothers, and there are not-so-good ones. Then there are ones like Carmela Dela Rosa who recently threw her 2-year-old granddaughter off of a shopping mall's balcony ... to her death.

Grandmothers like that should be shot ... or at least thrown from a balcony themselves.

It happened at Tysons Corner Mall in Fairfax, Virginia, a mall I've been to countless times. They were walking to the parking garage, when for some reason the woman picked up tiny little Angelyn Ogdoc and threw her over the side of the walkway six stories down to the cold, hard ground below. 

Angleyn was taken to the hospital and pronounced dead. Dela Rosa has been charged with murder.

What could possibly happen to make anyone -- especially a grandmother -- do such such thing?

There are no answers now, and there may never be.

Was she just threatening the girl into acting good and she slipped? Did she snap in anger? Was she mentally ill? Or did she have some deep resentment toward the child?

The incident was apparently witnessed by other family members who say they have "no idea" why she did what she did. Neighbors say she was a kind, doting grandmother. Whatever the answers, they won't be enough.

There are countless stories in the news each day of parents abusing and injuring and even killing their children, but somehow it's almost more heartbreaking to see it done at the hands of a grandparent.

Grandparents are supposed to be the loving, nurturing people in our children's lives. They're often the people we trust with our babies more than anyone in the world, because we know that they, beyond anyone else, love them like we do.

So to have that trusted person -- your own mother -- kill your child has got to just amplify all the feelings of loss and mourning and rage one feels after losing a child.

There should be extra criminal charges added for betraying such a sacred trust.

Capital punishment is legal in Virginia, and while in theory I'm opposed to the practice, if they choose to implement it in this case, I probably won't show up to protest either.

What punishment do you think is fitting for a woman who does this to her own grandchild?

 

Image via Daily Mail