In 1979, Tanya Adams threw her two young sons from Washington’s Cable Bridge into the Columbia River. A devout Mormon experiencing psychosis, Tanya believed that killing Ryan and Christopher before they reached the age of accountability would guarantee them a place in the celestial kingdom.
She confessed hours later and never denied what she had done. The legal question was whether she could be considered insane when she understood that murder was illegal but believed killing her children was morally necessary.
Hannah and Jess examine Tanya’s collapse after her husband abandoned the family, the Mormon doctrines that structured her reasoning, the church leaders who recognized that she was suicidal, the jury that felt compelled to convict her, and the extraordinary sentence that placed her on lifetime probation rather than sending her to prison.