Woman Who Abandoned Her Eight-Year-Old Son at Hospital Defends Her Actions, Calling Him ‘Rude’

A Utah mother who faces child abandonment charges after leaving her eight-year-old son in a hospital defended her actions in an interview. 

Kathy Sherrer, 36, of Salt Lake City, left her son in a Salt Lake City hospital in February with a note pinned to his back: “This kid is rude and ungovernable! I do not want him in my house at all!”

She was arrested and charged last week with child abandonment, a third-degree felony; and child abuse, a class A misdemeanor.

But the mother says she had good reason for abandoning her son.

“I don’t think I’m necessarily a bad mother. I got more like overwhelmed,” she told Fox13.

“He was calling me names, he was calling me the B word, he was pulling his pants down in public.”

Sherrer recently separated from her husband, so she’s raising all four of their special-needs children alone.

How Rude! Mom Abandons Son with Note Calling Him ‘Rude’ – CW33 NewsFix https://t.co/w4q47qKZCg – #WestJordan #UT

— West Jordan News (@WestJordan_News) March 10, 2016

The parents have since gotten back together, and the mom has been visiting her son in foster care. She said she wants him back and he wants to come back.

Sherrer told KSL that she believed dropping the child at the hospital fell under the state’s so-called Safe Haven law. 

“I thought that it was OK that we could drop them off and it was a Safe Haven place,” she said.  “I wasn’t sure about the Safe Haven laws or what it meant. … I really did not know any other way to go about it.”

But Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill said parents can’t randomly pick places and drop children off like that. 

[morearticles]1988494[/morearticles]

“You don’t get to arbitrarily drop children off at certain institutions,” he said.

“You reach out to that organization, that organization helps process your child, there’s an understanding. Everybody understands what everyone’s role is. Everyone knows what they’re supposed to do. But you don’t simply say, ‘I’ve had enough and I’m going to drop off this child and no one knows who I am.'”

If convicted of the crimes, Sherrer faces up to six years in prison.