This occurred on May 11th of 1945 in Los Angels, California.
On the Friday before Mother’s Day, a 17 year old college student named Barbara Adams went out and purchased a new knife and two pretty canaries; Barbara never intended for these beautiful birds to become beloved pets, the teen needed them to see how easy it would be to kill with her newly acquired blade. As soon as Barbara returned home, she immediately decapitated both of those poor canaries; the teen then burnt their tiny bodies and promptly discarded the evidence. After this, Barbara prepared dinner for her mother, 54 year old Maud, who was soon due home from her shift at a local hospital. After dinner, Mother and daughter got into a heated dispute; it’s said that Maud actually slapped her daughter. After their tiff, the unsuspecting Maud went to bed as usual.
Sometime during the night, Barbara snuck into her mother’s room with her trusty new knife. She strategically placed a pillow over her Maud’s face so that their neighbors would not hear her mom’s screams, then the teen stabbed Maud 21 times. Once Mommy was deader than a doornail, Barbara calmly went downstairs to cleanse her knife; the teen then took a nice shower, then crawled in bed where she read from her Bible before peacefully falling asleep.
It was the morning of Mother’s Day when the teen awoke. She climbed out of bed, cleaned the apartment, then walked down to the landlady’s place, a Mrs. Dunn. Barbara confessed that she’d been contemplating her Mother’s demise for quite some time, and she confessed to the flabbergasted landlord that she’d finally gone through with it. Mrs. Dunne screamed for her husband, then she asked Barbara if she was sure Maud was truly deceased. The teen assured the order lady that her mother was, without a doubt, good and dead; Mrs. Dunn immediately notified the police.
When investigators asked Barbara why she would do this, the teen replied that she just couldn’t get along with her mother. Mom had been overbearing; while all of her friends were out having fun, Maud had forced her daughter to stay at home and study. Barbara also stated that she’d originally intended to commit suicide but didn’t have the nerve; instead she savagely murdered her mother.
It must be mentioned that some neighbors did claim that Maud had been overly controlling, and possibly abusive towards her daughter. That having been said, the landlords, who knew the mother and daughter quite well, deny that Maud was anything but a fantastic mother who’d tried her best to give Barbara a decent life. The Dunnes called Barbara a conceited snob and said that Maud had been a most devoted of mothers.
In September of 1945, Juvenile court determined that Barbara had been legally and medically insane. The teen was sent to a psychiatric hospital where she reportedly responded well to electro shock therapy; Barbara was never tried for the murder of Maud Adams. As of today, no one knows what ever became of Barbara Adams, or where she is today.
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