Rita Sativa Kraft
21-year-old Rita Sativa Kraft and her 18-month-old son, Connor, were playing on their second-floor balcony on the morning of the 12th of September, 2007.
At about 6:30 that morning, more than a few people were woken up by Rita Kraft’s shriek – Connor had accidentally fallen off the balcony, hitting the hard-packed dirt below.
The impact knocked the toddler unconscious, and by the time Kraft’s roommate woke up and made his way down to the stricken child, Connor wasn’t breathing.
Fortunately, that roommate had medical training and knew how to perform CPR. The timely application of CPR resuscitated Connor, saving the boy’s life beyond the shadow of a doubt. Police and medical crews arrived and a helicopter crew airlifted the boy to a trauma center for emergency brain surgery.
Rita Kraft’s son spent the better part of two weeks in the hospital. He had to recover from the brain surgery as well as several fractures that his skull and facial bones suffered from the fall. Doctors in the hospital still don’t know what kind of long-term effects Connor could suffer from the injuries he received from the fall. The boy could have all sorts of things, such as blindness, crop up later on.
Ok, this is all terrible, what happened to little Connor. But why is Rita Kraft on People You’ll See In Hell?
Well, it turns out that Rita Kraft suffers from post-partum depression, and has a post-partum grief counselor. Rita called up her counselor on the telephone and told her confidant that Connor hadn’t fallen off the 21-foot balcony by accident.
She had thrown him off.
On the 12th of October, unable to live with the guilt any longer, Rita Kraft told the police what she had done, completely admitting to trying to kill her boy by throwing him off the balcony.
Rita Kraft is now facing a charge of attempted murder.
Her attorney has claimed that Rita Kraft’s family has a history of depression. A few of them suffer from depression, she has two aunts who have committed suicide and an uncle has threatened to kill himself.
According to her attorney, some mitigating circumstances which might have influenced her tossing her child to possible death were her past state of homeless and that Connor’s father, who is a roofer by trade, has recently gone on disability due to a fall off a roof. Connor is currently being cared for by his father, who hasn’t been charged.
Prosecutor Ariadne Symons is pushing for a conviction, saying:
The investigation showed it was intentional and that’s why I filed criminal charges – obviously everybody who throws their child off a balcony has a problem
Rita Sativa Kraft has pled not guilty in court, and we all know how that will go. Although attempted murder carries a possible life term, she will face minimal time at best and probation and further counseling at the worst.
But that doesn’t really matter.
Is she a sick girl who needs help? Or does she deserve Hell regardless of what her mental state was at the time?
What we here at People You’ll See In Hell would like to know is what you think.
That’s what matters.
Does Rita Sativa Kraft deserve Hell?
- Yes (52%, 205 Votes)
- No (48%, 191 Votes)
Total Voters: 396
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64 Comments »
tricky tricky tricky, i can’t really say without knowing what kind of person she is when she’s sound of mind. if she does love her kid when she’s “healthy” and provided him with the care he needed, then she’s a sick person that desperately needs help. if that’s not the case, fire up the barbeque.
I knew her. I met her 3 1/2 years ago, She was a sweet sweet girl that doesn’t deserve hell. If she did that she needed help. She was not evil. It is sad that that was how her life happened.
Maybe not hell, but do we really want someone running around who likes to throw babies from a 21 foot balcony?
Hmm… this one is kind of tricky. I don’t think she deserves hell, but she should not be allowed to care for her child until a pychologist says she is stable and I definately think she needs to go to prison- even if its only a little while- she should NOT get off scott free, after all, she did throw her baby off a balcony….
i am diagnosed with being bipolar and not once have i thought about trying to kill my kids.thats just a way of trying to get out of prison time.
Ok, having a mental illness doesn’t mean all mentally ill people are going to work like you. Mental illness is very complex – if it wasn’t, it would be easy to treat. Even people diagnosed with bipolar can be very different in the expression of their illness from person to person.
And again, in these terrible and tragic cases where a mother harms her baby, it’s usually Postpartum Psychosis that is in action. PPP is NOT postpartum depression and it is poorly understood and often inadequately treated, resulting in utter tragedy.
One point I’m trying to make is just because you have a mental illness doesn’t mean you can condemn someone else for not being ill in the same way as you. I have PTSD and the common idea of people with PTSD is that if you wake them suddenly, they can attack you. I’ve never done that (I have screamed in terror and flung myself backwards off the bed, though, which I am told is very relaxing for anyone who wakes me up), but that doesn’t mean because I don’t do it, it isn’t a legitimate issue of someone else’s PTSD.
My other point I’d like to make in general is just that new mothers become very isolated. Those with a close and loving family have support that comes in and is there, notices deterioration, and if they’re savvy enough, can move to get help. But too often that’s not the case – there’s no one there to help and keep an eye on things, or there’s not nearly enough education (or, if you’re Randy Yates, you feel your religious zealotry is more important than your family’s mental health and safety). We need more support and less stigma for the mentally ill in general. But we specifically need more help, education, and loving support of new mothers.
There’s always going to be mothers who kill – mothers with serious personality disorders, not that all personality disorders cause violence, mothers with serious coping and anger problems, mothers with Munchausen’s By Proxy, and mothers who are just evil semi-humans, etc. But we CAN make a difference in the number of tragedies caused by Postpartum Psychosis.
If she really was bad, then surely she wouldnt have confessed to it!!!! think about it, if she had wanted to kill the child or didnt feel bad she wouldnt have told the police the truth!!!!
i hope she gets the help she needs to get her back on the right track! good luck Rita
Thank you, anyone that has never met her can’t say a damn thing about her. I have two kids and could even begin to fathom doing that to them but i’m sure she has felt the same way about her boy. She was not evil. she does not deserve hell. May her soul rest in peace. RIP Rita. You are in my prayers girl
oops couldn’t begin to fathom doing that to them
RIP Rita??? Is she dead? I don’t recall recall reading that in the article. I am confused.
BTW, good on her for doing the right thing and owning up to what she did, but that baby could have very easily died. That was her goal as well. I believe she feels bad for what she did but I think that she has a LOT of redeeming to do in her life (if still alive that is), to avoid going to hell for it.
I was Rita’s aunt from Ohio. Yes, she died from an unintentional overdose in prison just a few weeks before she was to be released. Rita was an extremely sweet and sincere person her whole life. Unfortunately, she never had a chance from the moment she was born. Her mother was a drug addict and alcoholic (having severe emotional problems stemming from her own barbaric childhood that whe was forced to endure). Rita’s father was no better. She grew up without proper nurture. Rita “ran away” to live in California where she met someone who was not good for her. She became pregnant and was not married. When she believed herself to be pregnant again and stuck in a situation where she didn’t know which way to turn, she snapped. She threw her son off a balcony. In prison, she wrote us encouraging letters that she was thankful for her time in there where she could understand herself and work on her problems. She began a relationship with God and everything seemed to be changing for the better. Please don’t hold hate in your hearts for her. Was what she did a horrible thing? Yes. And she paid the price for it, with her life. All of us have horrible things inside of us. Not one of us is pure so next time you want to judge someone, walk in their shoes first. And then, look in the mirror….in memory of Rita.
First of all, I want to say that this was one of the few cases where I voted no for hell. The fact that Rita turned herself in is what saved her IMHO. Owning up to your responsibility goes a long way with me. I’m sorry that she found it necessary to take her own life – I guess the guilt and pain was more than she could bear. That’s sad.
That said, I like to point out that our poll is not a judgment on whether or not a person deserves to go to any kind of religious Hell. We’re all adults here and well aware that none of us are qualified for that decision. We are voting on how evil we believe the person’s crime is. As a rule, only the worst of the worst get written up here at PYSIH, but sometimes there’s a question of mitigating circumstances or culpability.
Some of us are less adult than others when it comes to preachy bullshit like what Angela is spouting. I’m more than a bit tired of religious folks puffing up self-righteously, spouting off, then expecting others not to spout right back.
I hear you Becks. I’m a recovering Catholic, and the biggest thing I ever did for myself was to finally decide I didn’t need any religion in my life. That doesn’t mean I don’t believe in a higher power who cares about what happens to me (I call him God), but I don’t need a list of rules to tell me how I should live my life. I sure as hell do not need someone else telling me I’m a sinner, or telling me I’m doing it wrong. That’s between me and God.
Sometimes he puts people in my life in order to teach me something I need to know, but it’s never so obvious that I know it’s happening. He doesn’t send Jesus to my house with a DVD on how to get my shit together. It’s way more subtle than that, and it’s up to me whether I get the message or not. For some people, the answer is in church, but I never found anything there but guilt and shame. My answers are in every person I’ve ever known, in every relationship I ever had and in every mistake I ever made.
For me, it’s so simple. Treat everyone the way I would want to be treated, and don’t hurt other people. What’s hard is living my those two simple principles, because like everyone else, I’m selfish and egotistical. I want to put my needs first, but that’s not possible if I want to treat people the way I want to be treated. Do you see the Catch-22 in that.
Of course, it’s not hard at all if one accepts those two principles completely, and lives his/her life by them on a daily basis. It become an automatic response when interacting with others. Always put the other person’s needs before my own. I’ve seen people who can do it, so why can’t I?
Someone once told me the goal is progress, not perfection. That’s why I keep on trying to be a good man, hoping I’ll do the next right thing and believing that some day I’ll figure it all out.
Wow, look at me, getting all preachy and shit. Well, that’s what I believe, and I’m reasonably happy because of it, so what the heck. If the Jesus folk can do it , why can’t I?
Well said max!!!!!!!!!
Mandy…every single post you do you go on about been depressed!!!!! SO FUCK?? Who gives a shit? people handle depression differently! and unfortuantely these people dont handle it as well as you do!! why dont you stop going on about your ‘depression’ and ‘bipolar’ because its getting boring now!!!
Please keep you language and temper under control.
You have a valid point, but trying to flame someone is not a good way to go about making it.
Don’t feed the trolls. Mental illness I can understand, so let’s give her some nice quiet alone time in the nut hut.
THAT was funny
I am disappointed that most people think she doesn’t deserve hell, this woman sick or not, tried to kill a baby and was almost successful. I don’t care how mental she was, she could have given the baby up rather than trying to kill him. If anyone ever laid a finger on my baby I’d take them to hell myself!
So much for what God teaches us….
The first reasonable, intelligent thing you’ve said! Yep, so much for what god (which god? there are so many!) teaches ‘us’! I came to that conclusion in early childhood. Nice of you to catch up.
who cares mandy–what a cool name you have there.your makin me popular.thanks! this was only the second time i mentioned it.and the points both times i was trying to make is that people are always trying to use the depression card to get off.when really they are just born with no soul.you just like to go around starting fights and im not giving in…sorry…not gonna happen
Mandy I agree with you that people constantly use the mental illness ‘excuse’ to try and get out of it! what i am saying is in this case, she was already getting away with it! the authorities thought that it was an accident, it wasnt until she confessed that she got charged! so i am saying she does need help and in my opinion does not deserve hell!! and i was also saying that people cope and react to mental illness differently! obviously these cases where more severe than most people! i dont see how anyone who does any of the crimes which appear on PYSIH can be mentally sain!
I am inclinded to agree with Who cares mandy in this case. However is there any need for such foul languauge?x
I know Rita and i love her no matter what she has done. She’s a young girl in a difficult situation who comes from a very unstable and challenging background. AND of course, EVERYONE is deserving of hell, including all that are posting here, but it is only by an active and living faith in Jesus that anyone will stand before God on that day and not be sentenced to an eternal separation from Him.
Sometimes people snap….it is a horrible thing to have happened, and Rita possibly couldn’t live with the guilt of it and came forward. I for one and thankful. There is forgiveness to be found in true repentence. I am praying for her and her little one… AC
Rita-
“AND of course, EVERYONE is deserving of hell, including all that are posting here,”
Well I am not deserving of hell. And if you think you are, maybe you should change. Don’t lump all of us into your sinking boat.
You are thankful? For what? That a baby was thrown like that? That it must have been in such horrific pain? That it may still suffer ongoing problems because of this womans ruthless act? Because that child has to grow up knowing its mother DELIBERATELY tried to kill it?
Maybe you should be thankful that your God is a God of vengence and that this woman will ultimately suffer for eternity for her disgusting actions.
HE is also a God of love and forgiveness. It is his intention that all are with HIM. People, look at yourself very carefully in the mirror. There isn’t one human on this earth who isn’t deserving of hell. God, through the innocent death of HIS Son gave us a way to avoid the permanent death of hell. Do you not recall that Saul (his name before God gave him the name Paul; one of the 4 apostles in the New Testament) was a murderer of christians? Think hard about the words that come from you. One day, you might find yourself on the other side of all of this…..others might be using hate to judge you.
Lady, gimmie a break. You’re coming off as a holier than thou asshole, just so you know. Dismount the high horse. That rarefied air is muddling your logic and your sense of justice. No one here is going to feel at all guilty for their words because some random bitch with sand in her vagina tells us we’re angering her god.
Rita Sativa Kraft killed her baby. All reasons aside, that’s what she did. We are angry about it, and hope she gets what’s coming to her in whatever afterlife she believed in. Snap it shut, Angela, before someone slaps it off your shoulders.
Typo – ‘tried to kill her baby’.
P.S. Jesus didn’t die for me. No one has to die for me. I wish Rita felt that way.
If someone is this depressed and has a family history of it why would her friends and family let HER on a balcony that high, thinking that maybe she’ll jump off, let alone let her up there un-supervised with her kid. Once you get to that point, there are always signs. Maybe the friends and family are to blame on not taking action to get her better. If she was going to get to that point and throw her kid to it’s death, then there’s signs and everyone must’ve ignored them. Period.
maybe she should not be a parent. maybe she should of had an abortion
Judge not, less you be judged.
Rita is a good person with a serious problem.
I known her personally for years.
How can you all sit at home pretending to be more moral than this girl? Anyone who is without sin can cast the first stone. All of this christ B.S. makes me laugh. It’s a poor substitute for a guilty conscience.
No shit. She may have even gotten the stupid idea to do this from the bible.
She threw her baby off a balcony in an attempt to kill him. Sorry, but I don’t need to be “free of sin” to see that as really, really wrong. Depression is no excuse.
all christians should go to hell for even believing in something as stupid as hell.
Classic! I love it!
Wow you are so educated! Nice one. Why is it Christians offend you in such an angry way? Looks like you are the one with the issue. I think you should go to hell for not believing at all…oh…wait…you will. ;P Slip a couple college classes in there first before you go…look like a 5th grade education is getting you no where.
omg! i’M SORRY, but I have bipolar disorder and have had postpartum with ALL of my kids and NEVER IN A MILLION YEARS would I DO THAT! TO ME when I get down and out I hug my kids and gawk over them NOT TRY TO KILL THEM! I DON’T BUY THAT DEFENSE AT ALL! Well She’ll face God one day :) Then he will DAMN HER TO HELL!!! See you there MOMMY CRUELTY I’ll be looking down on YOU ;)
I feel very sorry for you….maybe someday you will understand what you have just said…..
It always comes down to Pride with you people.
Update. She died of a drug overdose in county jail on 5/7/08. They aren’t ruling it a suicide, but people who know her are sure it was.
Self selective reduction. Glad she took it upon herself to rid society of her worthlessness!
My daughter was/is close friends with and grew up with Rita here in Colorado. Rita was sweet and gentle and kind. I thought the most of her. When she went to CA I perceived that she fell in with a tough crowd. How this happened I have no clue. But for her to toss her baby off a balcony, admit to it later and now pass away in a jail cell? Unthinkable. Her family must be devastated. My prayers are with all of them. As for this site? Judge not least you be judged. Also the press never gets it right and that is the only thing I can say for certain. Peace.
1:8For God is my record, how greatly I long after you all in the bowels of Jesus Christ. 1:9And this I pray, that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and in all judgment;
Philippians 1:8-9
5:11But now I have written unto you not to keep company, if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such an one no not to eat. 5:12For what have I to do to judge them also that are without? do not ye judge them that are within? 5:13But them that are without God judgeth. Therefore put away from among yourselves that wicked person.
1 Corinthians 5:11-13
If you’re going to read the bible to people, make sure you read the whole thing. There are hundreds of relevant verses if you’d like to argue this.
Lock in a loony bin for all eternity.
I knew Rita and steve personally, they were both awesome people. No way should she go to hell! “Somebody” pegged it. If she was truly evil she wouldn’t have confessed. Personally I think the guilt is what killed her, indirectly. There’s no doubt in my mind that she knew she was eating more than her limit of methadone. She’s not even alive anymore and people still slander her. Let It Go.
ARE YOU KIDDING ME? A woman throws her baby off a balcony and you all want to hold a love in for her??? I say TO HELL SHE GOES!!!
I have childeren and after my third daughter i had post partem depression. I can assure you tho that she is now nine yrs old, alive and well. When you go for pre natal checks they give you forms to fill out. Some of these are to assess if you are in danger of suffering post partem depression. If you are in the high risk category you are directed to seek councelling early. If after the birth your baby blues last more than a few days, your child health care nurse will set up further councelling.
She was getting the councelling and yet she STILL threw her baby over the railing. She disgusts me.
Amy, don’t know if you still check the site out, but your comments always crack me up.
I’m suspecting Aussie humour? Still, I agree with your sentiments.
The *only* redeeming thing she did was confess. Being depressed is having anger turned inwards. Self-destruction is the primary goal. Ever wonder why serial killers are always so happy? They kill *other* people — depressed people end up killing themselves, not others.
And I seriously don’t know why these type of crimes end up bringing the religious out of the woodwork. ;-?
i’m getting damn tired of everyone with a kid claiming ppd. so many people abuse that excuse, who’s to know who really has it or doesn’t? the fact that this trick was sane enough to lie about it tells me she did it on purpose, so i have no sympathy for her. bur n hell, bitch. you knew what you were doing, that’s why you tried to cover it up.
btw, give your kid a name like sativah, and you’re bound to see this kind of shit down the line!
how is it that you can be so cruel of a person? are you not sad when anyone is in such a critically bad path that you cannot exercise compassion? Every one of us needs it. When you do, I hope its there.
There’s a difference between being ‘realistic’ and ‘cruel’, Angela. How can you be so blind?
Critically bad path my ass. Wake up and smell the coffee! Yes everybody can use a little compassion once in a while, but most people I think that need a little compassion don’t throw their child of a balcony.
My only compassion is for the child.
PPD isn’t the issue. Postpartum Psychosis, which is rare but very, very serious, is.
I knew Rita when she was 7. She was … she was sweet, but seemed dissociated. Strangely detached for a 7 yr old, and her father majorly creeped me out. They’d moved to Santa Cruz from somewhere in Washington, I recall. I let her come to my house whenever she wanted, but never let my child go alone to her house, even if I had to endure her father’s company. I had nothing solid to go on, but even at 7 she seemed a little broken and I really really suspected her father. She never said anything and there was nothing more than my ‘feeling’, but when I found out today that she died I cried so hard my eyes ache. She seemed like she never really even became ‘Rita’, like she was just untapped potential. I ache for her childhood, for her LIFE. I ache with pain for her child and what she did to him and the guilt she felt. I wish we hadn’t fallen out of contact and I could have continued to have an influence in her life. I wish that Someone had been there for her and I would’ve liked to be someone who Was there for her.
so sad….
This woman had a counselor, and likely was aware that when you start feeling anything negative towards the baby, it’s best to put the baby down in a safe spot and take a 5 minute break from the room, go splash water on your face, call a friend, anything. Yet she chose to throw an innocent baby, HER innocent baby, over the balcony.
Apparently her meds and counseling didn’t help her out a lot; but one has to wonder why in heaven’s name she would chose an apartment with a balcony when she had a little one, given it’s not the safest environment for a little one to learn to crawl and walk in.
Punishing her is a moot point now, given she took it upon herself to mete out the punishment.
I really hope that little boy is doing well now and isn’t suffering any permanent injuries or defecits!
I voted for hell. I don’t feel sorry for her, she new she had a problem. She could have called someone to watch her child, if she was feeling like “throwing her baby off a balcony”. I hope her life was worth it, what kind of life does her baby have?
You understand that part of mental illness is the way it changes the way you think, right? If rational thought were a feature, it probably wouldn’t be an illness.
I am hoping you are very grateful you’ve never had to live through your own brain working against you and tearing your life down to bits.
This story was the ONLY one I have ever voted: do NOT deserve hell.
Well, no surprise here — voted for hell. Yep, not much of a decision really. If she had lived, then we would have seen more of the abuse-excuse lawyer show. This lady came really close to actually accepting responsibility. I would have liked to have seen if she would have followed through with her initial steps towards owning her actions. The case of Narjes Modarressi is the typical example — she only confessed once the lies she told caught up to her. And now, of course, she has a lawyer who’s made his career by getting women off murder charges due to mental illness. The sheer fact that a lawyer is involved is a guarantee that people will automatically assume any claim of mental illness is bogus, and that isn’t the case at all. There are bound to be genuine cases where mental illness is involved, but no one is going to be believed.
Again, there are RARE cases, but if every Tom, Dick and Harry claims “mental illness”, then no one will be believed.
I knew Rita in high school. We were good friends, but her Father was really controlling and wouldn’t let her spend time with people outside of school, really. He always gave me the creeps. After we graduated, I knew she had gone to California, but never heard from her after that, and I’ve wondered often how she was. I did a search for her today hoping to find her on Facebook or something to reconnect, and I’m very sad to find out about this. This is a tragedy in many ways, and I’m heartbroken for her son and for her. I work with the mentally ill now, and I see every day how much trauma and depression can affect you. It doesn’t excuse her crime, but maybe helps to understand it. No one can know that they wouldn’t have done the same thing if they had been in her shoes, and had her background and mental state.