Not just PPP, but Schizophrenia as well. She was being treated for that, but had gone AWOL from the hospital, or whoever was treating her.
From the details of the story, it seems very likely that she was insane at the time, and should be in treatment for her schizophrenia. She sounds just as unhappy about murdering her baby as everyone else is. I believe her. What I don’t understand is why she didn’t stick with her treatment before. I wonder if she will try to stick with it now. Not that it’ll be any good, now that she’s a child murderer.
When mental illness is involved, I don’t think there is any limit to how far humanity can fall. However, I’m not sure it’s fair to say we’re falling. It’s hard for anyone who has not been mentally ill to understand what the illness feels like, and how it can make things like this happen. This is not to excuse it—just explain it.
She was responsible for not getting treated, although I’ll bet there are cultural barriers there. It sounds like she was hispanic and highly religious. I don’t know how well educated she was, but I do know that when things are interpreted via religious points of view, they do believe it was the devil that made them do it. They can seek treatment from priests and witch doctors, and that’s not going to help. These are the combinations of circumstances that can result in this kind of depravity.