www.roanoke.com

The shooting deaths four years ago of a young mother and her three children simultaneously broke Roanoke's heart and served as a chilling reminder.

After Angela Arrington and her children were mercilessly gunned down in their home, the Rev. Bill Lee of Loudon Avenue Christian Church urged women in his congregation to know, really know, the men they were bringing into their lives -- and by extension, their homes.

The shooter had been Arrington's boyfriend, who lived with her sometimes.

Tragically, the trend is ongoing: Too many children pay the price because their mothers give their hearts to the wrong men.

The Sunday front-page article in The Roanoke Times chronicling the deadly abuses children suffer at the hands of their mothers' live-in lovers sadly didn't come as a surprise.

A 6-year-old boy in California was beaten to death by his mother's abusive boyfriend, then buried under fertilizer and cement. A 2-year-old boy was drowned in Arizona because his mother's on-again, off-again boyfriend believed the child was an obstacle to the adult relationship. Another 2-year-old boy in Utah died after he was thrown across a room because he balked at bedtime.

The stakes are high for any woman seeking a mate; they're even higher when children are involved.

The examples of mistreatment are numerous, and most don't make the news. Yet every time a woman gives her boyfriend access to her household, either by giving him a key or moving him in, she is playing Russian roulette with her children's safety.

Four years ago, Clinton Brathwaite shot Arrington in the middle of the night and fatally shot three of her children, ages 13, 10 and 8. A fourth child, 14, survived. Brathwaite is now serving life in prison without parole.

Authorities speculate the quadruple murder began with an argument between Brathwaite and Arrington over another woman she suspected he was seeing. Officials surmised that after Brathwaite shot Arrington, he shot the children to eliminate witnesses.

A few years ago, a woman told me that she had made the decision years earlier essentially not to date after she divorced and while she was raising her young daughter. She didn't want to expose the child to any risk.

The strategy worked for her.

Her daughter now is a successful adult who recently finished graduate school.

And mom is happily engaged.

Having that special someone is nice. But if there's an inkling of doubt, Sunday's article reiterates the necessity of erring on the side of motherhood.