17. Antony Baekeland murdered his mother after being forced into an incestuous sexual relationship with the former model
Antony Baekeland (b. 1946 CE) was the son of New York model and socialite Barbara Daly Baekeland and writer Brooks Baekeland. Growing up in a nomadic environment, living and traveling across Europe and North America during his formative years, accompanied by his parent’s many extramarital lovers, Antony displayed early signs of increasingly severe mental health problems. Not only exhibiting regular symptoms of schizophrenia for which he was later formally diagnosed, but Antony also possessed paranoid tendencies and engaged in erratic behavior, including several instances in which he threatened his mother with knives; however, due to his father’s belief that psychiatry was an immoral profession, Antony was denied access to appropriate medical treatment.
Attempting to “cure” Antony’s homosexuality, his mother first hired prostitutes for him and at some point after divorcing Brooks in 1968 manipulated her son into an incestuous sexual relationship with herself. In July 1972 Antony made his first attempt on his mother’s life, trying to throw her under traffic in London but finding himself too physically weak to do so. Admitted to a private psychiatric hospital, Antony was released soon after at his mother’s behest despite the warnings of doctors that he remained a danger. Just two weeks after his release, on November 17, 1972, Antony repeatedly stabbed his mother to death.
Confessing his crime to police, Antony was institutionalized at Broadmoor Hospital until July 21, 1980, whereupon he immediately flew to New York City. On July 27, Antony attacked his 87-year-old maternal grandmother Nini Daly with a knife; stabbing her eight times, and breaking several bones, he failed and was arrested for attempted murder. Before his trial could commence, Antony committed suicide by plastic bag suffocation on March 20, 1981.