Meet 62 year old Althea Ricketts.  Ricketts posed for the above mugshot after she was arrested for aggravated child abuse.

Ricketts got word from a friend that her son had been posting status messages on his facebook page indicating he might try to hurt himself, so she decided to punish him with a beating.

Yeah… I’m confused as hell too! 😯

Details below…

Authorities say an acquaintance of Ricketts called the 62-year-old mother Friday night, and told Ricketts about a disturbing post on the Facebook page of Ricketts’ son, where he was threatening to cause harm to himself.

Ricketts called back later and told the woman she’d hit her son and he’d run away from home. He was later found at a friend’s home with injuries to both arms.

When interviewed by police, the boy, whose name and age were redacted from arresting documents, told police that his mother had gotten angry and had beaten him with a cable because he wasn’t supposed to be on the social networking site.

A resident of the home where the boy fled told police that Rickett’s son was nervous and crying when he arrived.

When asked, Ricketts reportedly told the resident that the boy “deserved everything he got” because he had lied to her about having the Facebook page.

The arresting officer wrote that Ricketts “stated to me that hitting a child with a cable is a common way of disciplining kids where she comes from.”

Ricketts was arrested and charged with aggravated child abuse. She was booked into the Orange County Jail, where she was being held without bail on Saturday.

What is it about Facebook that is causes so much violence and confusion?

[…and what is it about this mother that she would beat her son instead of taking him to a therapist?] 😕