Mother in videotaped beating says not a monster

MISHAWAKA, Ind. (AP) -- A woman caught on videotape beating her 4-year-old daughter in a department store parking lot said Monday that none of her three children have ever been abused before.

"People might think I'm a monster, but I've been a mother for six years, and no harm has come to my children before this, never," Madelyne Gorman Toogood told CNN.

"All I can say to everybody else" is ''I'm sorry,"' she said. "That's all I can say."

Toogood, 25, was charged with felony battery to a child, which carries a maximum penalty of three years in prison.

Toogood told reporters Sunday she hit her daughter, Martha, in the head and back and pulled her hair -- but did not punch her.