NAPERVILLE, Ill. — Neighbors heard the couple shouting at each other, but they never saw it get physical. Artur Plackowska said his wife recently told him she loved him.

But beneath that ordinary domestic facade lay far more violent resentments between the husband and wife, prosecutors say, eventually leading Elzbieta Plackowska to kill her own 7-year-old son, stabbing him 100 times Tuesday, all out of anger at her often-absent, truck driver husband. She then fatally and repeatedly stabbed a 5-year-old girl she was babysitting.

"She felt he truly did not appreciate how fine a wife and mother she was," DuPage County State's Attorney Robert Berlin said. "She told the detectives that she thought by killing (her son) Justin she would make her husband hurt the way she hurt in their relationship."