 Authors Cheryl Meyer , Michelle Oberman , and Michelle Rone , discussing the Green case in their book Mothers Who Kill Their Children : Understanding the Acts of Moms from Susan Smith to the " Prom Mom " , point out that Green was adjudged psychologically competent at what would be commonly considered the least @-@ controlled point of any mental illness from which she was suffering : she was on a cocktail of drugs which could treat the symptoms of mental illness but not the illness itself , she had been drinking alcohol in amounts which she had been warned could interfere with her medications , and she was coping with the loss of her children . Nevertheless , she spoke for her own mental competence at the time , a judgment which was echoed by the court . Meyer , Oberman , and Rone speculate that Green could meet the diagnostic criteria for several mental illnesses , including antisocial personality disorder , but add that the fact that her crimes were a combination of impulsive — arson and the murder of her children — and premeditated — the poisoning of Michael Farrar — makes any mental illness extremely difficult to diagnose . 
