Amanda Ware put her hand to her face and cried Friday after a Cook County judge made her three children wards of the court, ruling that she continued to evade responsibility for the "drowning murders" of her first three children in 2003.Judge Demetrios Kottaras said Ware continues to call those children's deaths an accident and had "deceived and outright conned" her therapist about her involvement in the deaths. He ruled that she is "unable, unwilling and unfit" to parent her three young children.
"What I have seen is that mother has gone through the motions and failed to address the real issues in this case," he said. "She has been dishonest with herself and her therapist, failing to look head-on at the two most crucial issues ... that being her judgment and responsibility for the drowning murders of her first three children."
Those children — ages 6, 3 and 2 — died when the car they were in rolled into a central Illinois lake as Ware, then known as Hamm, and her boyfriend, Maurice LaGrone Jr., stood by and watched, according to testimony. Police later found numerous tiny handprints on the back window — the location of the last remaining air in the car as it sank about 5 feet into Clinton Lake.
The couple told police it was an accident but were charged with murder. LaGrone was convicted and sentenced to life in prison, but a separate DeWitt County jury acquitted Hamm of the killings, convicting her instead of child endangerment.
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