Why would one even want to talk to a mother who killed her children? So horrific is this crime that the thought of sitting in the same room with such a person brings a twinge of revulsion, an involuntary shiver, even after having spent hours in conversation with these very women. But now, at least for us, the revulsion is directed outward, at the crime, rather than at the women themselves.

We set out to speak with mothers who kill because, after almost two decades of studying these women's cases, we realized that no one had ever really talked to them. Many had told their stories for them - experts, journalists, lawyers - but no one had ever asked the women if these stories had gotten it right, or even whether they had some thoughts of their own on what had gone wrong.