Through a Mother's Eyes Read online

  Julie stumbled into “Hydrocodone Hell” the day she broke her elbow. Her genetic makeup, which included dependencies of tobacco, alcohol, and narcotics, overpowered her. She fed her addiction tablet after tablet and was hooked. And even though she made many attempts over the years to fend off the addiction, she would remain, because of various unfortunate, random medical circumstances, clutched within its grasp.

  In January of 1987, Julie began to obtain Vicodin illegally. Recently divorced from David, she was living alone for the first time and depressed. She began taking the Vicodin to help make her problems go away. As a trained health care professional, she knew how to forge the prescriptions with DEA numbers. She called the prescriptions into the pharmacies misrepresenting herself as a nurse from a doctor’s office. Various aliases were used for the patient names. Afterwards, she would simply pick up the prescription as if she were the actual patient.

  Chuck’s employment required extensive travel and he was gone weeks at a time. The separation in their courtship meant that there was no time to see warning signs that even remotely suggested to Julie that there were serious problems ahead.

  In early 1988, a little over a year into their relationship, Julie became pregnant. Chuck was adamant against Julie having the child and demanded she have an abortion. Julie, twenty- five years old, refused to have the abortion. But Chuck insisted to the point of forcing her physically to go to the clinic. The emotional distress of the abortion overwhelmed Julie. She was distraught over the pressures from Chuck and her family. And, she felt the guilt of the act itself. She made a second attempt at suicide by taking an overdose of Valium and consuming a fifth of Vodka on April 24, 1988.

  By chance, her father found her unconscious and rushed her to the emergency room at Florida Hospital. She remained there overnight and recovered. Again, and unfortunately, there was no ongoing evaluation or treatment provided although she was diagnosed as suffering from Major Depression with suicidal tendencies and Mixed Personality Disorder. Her relationship with Chuck continued.

  It was in the summer of 1988 that Julie would experience her first encounter with the law. A pharmacist realized what she was doing and notified her physician-employer who explained the problem to Julie. Consequently, Julie turned herself in to the police in Seminole County and was charged with prescription fraud. She was placed into a treatment program along with one year of aftercare. She remained drug-free until 1989.

  Later, in October of 1988, her new employer, South Lake Memorial, advised Julie that she was going to be arrested for prescription fraud. Again, she turned herself in to the police in Clermont and she is arrested on four counts of “Forgery of a Prescription” (Case Number 89-1735-CFA). The charges were later dropped.

  Chuck proposed marriage to Julie and they were engaged in the spring of 1989. He talked with Julie about raising a family with “lots of kids.” According to Julie, they started trying to have children. He suggested she find work near the new house. At the time, Chuck was building a home in an affluent section of Clermont, Florida. The house was being built on a street called Harder Road. The name of that street would soon come to best describe and summarize the road that Julie was on.

  Julie was admitted to Sand Lake Hospital for pneumothorax (a collapsed lung which caused severe painful breathing) in June of 1989. Despite knowledge of her conviction for prescription fraud and that she was in a watch-prevention program, the attending physician prescribed Valium along with Vicodin to relieve her pain. Any remission became silent while her addiction re-ignited.

  Chuck originally wanted to see a sex specific specialist and family planner before they started a family. Before that happened Julie became pregnant again just months before the marriage. Chuck, wanting a boy and not knowing the gender of the child, again demanded an abortion. Also, insisting on an abortion so as not to jeopardize her impending marriage to Chuck are Julie’s parents. They did not want her to be a single parent of two children and without a home. They also didn’t want to endure the added expense of helping Julie raise still another child. Ashley was in her preteen years and still “Grandma’s girl.”

  Julie refused to have the abortion saying that she would not allow Chuck, or her parents, to dominate her decision to keep the child. She was determined to not repeat the same thing that had happened with Ashley. This child was hers and she was going to keep him no matter what. It was Julie’s first declaration of independence. But it would be a costly one. Chuck became furious and ordered both Julie and Ashley out of the house. Forced out, Julie marched on determined to have the child.

  In August, Donald suffered a heart attack due in part to his distress and anger at Julie. He believed that she exercised poor judgment and was making a serious mistake by continuing the pregnancy.

  During September of 1989 while working at South Lake Memorial, Julie found a friend in paramedic Jim. He knew about her situation and was interested in Julie. He offered to marry her so that the child would have a name and so Julie, Ashley, and the newborn would have a home. Julie accepted his proposal. The marriage took place on October 21 and they found a small apartment in Clermont. When Chuck found out about Julie’s relationship and marriage to Jim he tried to win her back. He sent flowers to the hospital and called regularly. He put up a sign on a billboard along Highway 50 that runs through the center of the small town of Clermont. On it was written, “Chuck loves Julie, Ashley, and February 23!” February 23 was the anticipated day of the birth.

  According to Julie, he threatened suicide if she stayed with Jim. Chuck was Baker-Acted into Florida Hospital due to depression and suicidal ideation. The Baker Act is imposed against an individual when that individual becomes harmful to him or herself, or others. The individual is then admitted legally, although “involuntarily,” to treatment. Chuck tells the attending physician that he is too “agitated” and refuses to answer admissions questions. He is admitted, sedated, and discharged three days later.

  When Chuck failed to win her back, he parked outside the new couple’s apartment in what Julie described as a menacing fashion, and stalked her. He sued for custody of the not yet born child. Julie believes Chuck somehow contacted Jim and forced the issue. On New Year’s Eve 1990, arrangements were made between Jim and Julie for her to meet a girlfriend for dinner. When she returned home later that evening the apartment was dark, deserted, and empty. Jim was gone.

  She doesn’t know why she did it except that she believed Chuck always got his way and that night would be no exception. With that in mind, Julie picked up the telephone and called Chuck. “It was as if he knew I would call when he answered the telephone.” He invited her to his New Year’s Eve party that evening and Julie relented. After a rapid dissolution of the marriage to Jim on January 9, 1990, Chuck and Julie married on January 19. On January 30, her nursing license was revoked because of the prescription fraud charges. Less than a month later, on February 23, she gave birth to Charley.

  During this time, Julie’s addiction progressed. She routinely continued to forge prescriptions for Vicodin. Her white-collar addiction did, however, remain clear of hard-core street narcotics of any sort. She asked for drug dependence treatment but Chuck refuses not wanting public knowledge of a family problem. Later, he agrees to sign the insurance forms for treatment. She attended a detoxification treatment program at The Pavillion in Winter Park but lost faith in the program later stating that her counselor was incapable of helping her. She called in fraudulent prescriptions from the facility.

  Soon after the birth, Chuck threw Julie and newborn Charley out of the house. They returned to live with her parents. He refused to support Julie and Charlie financially while living with her parents and Julie filed her first petition for the dissolution of their brief marriage. Included with the petition is a request for a court ordered restraining order to prevent Chuck from molesting, harassing, physically hurting or abusing Julie.

  Domestic violence” means any assault, aggravated assault, battery, aggravated battery, sexual as
sault, sexual battery, stalking, aggravated stalking, kidnapping, false imprisonment, or any criminal offense resulting in physical injury or death of one family member or household member by another who is or was residing in the same single dwelling unit.

  Julie ended the divorce proceedings, however, and the highly unstable marriage continued. The police were called to the residence regularly. During the same period, there was a constant, stressful, vindictive court battle over custody of Ashley with David. Throughout 1990, Julie repeatedly sought shelter in her parents’ home.

  April 15, she is diagnosed with acute pleurisy, a recurring lung disorder, and is prescribed Tylenol #3 for the pain. On May 10, 1990, Julie is again arrested in Seminole County and charged with “Attempting to Obtain Prescription Drugs by Fraud.” The case is transferred to Orange County. Several days later Chuck is court ordered to pay $500.00 per month in child support.

  In early June, Julie complains of chest pains and is prescribed Tylenol with codeine. Later in the same day while in attendance at an addiction group therapy meeting Julie passes out and loses consciousness. She is diagnosed as suffering from an overdose. Julie believes that she had an allergic reaction to the codeine. She is Baker Acted and the emergency room physician performs gastric lavage on her. Two days later, she is evaluated and assessed by Dr. Jeffrey Danzinger who then lifts the Baker Act and prescribes Prozac for her depression. Medical records indicate she is abusing forty to sixty tablets of Vicodin per day, an unusually high amount for an adult.

  In mid-June, she is arrested in Orange County for “Forgery To Obtain A Controlled Substance” (Case number CR90-6419). She receives a sentence of five years of probation and is required to attend treatment at the Orlando Methadone Treatment Center. There, she reports her troubled youth and her addiction to Vicodin. The structure and counseling she received during her Methadone treatment appeared to help her maintain a somewhat more stable lifestyle. She was determined to see the entire program through.

  Clinical records indicate that throughout 1991 with little or no money and while finding it increasingly difficult to live with her parents any longer, combined with the tremendous dependency she had for Chuck, Julie entertained reconciling again with him.

  In February of 1991, Julie was arrested for petty theft by the Orlando Police (Case number M091-2897) and required to attend an Impulse Control Seminar.

  Between late 1974 and on through 1993, Chuck was dealing with a severe alcohol dependency. December 30, 1974, he is arrested for DUI in Arlington, Virginia, but he pleads guilty to reckless driving. He is ordered to complete an eight-week alcohol awareness program. Another arrest for the same offense occurs on September 19, 1984 in Orange County, Florida. This time he is found not guilty of the charges. Again, on August 28, 1990, he is arrested for another DUI. He is fined for “failure to use designated lane.”

  Julie, Ashley, and Charley returned to live with Chuck. He assured them that things would change. By May, she completed cosmetology school paid for by David.

  Julie once again became pregnant and in spite of her desire to continue with the pregnancy, a second abortion was demanded and achieved by Chuck in February of 1992, two days before Charley’s birthday. She begged on her knees to keep the baby. He again literally forced her into the car and drove her to a clinic he had located in Tampa that would perform a late-term abortion. Julie was sixteen weeks pregnant. Chuck reported that following the abortion, “she was almost a zombie emotionally.”

  Julie also described the atmosphere within the home they shared. Chuck would arrive home every night from work and hold a military-like house inspection. She and the two children would hold their collective breath until he was finished. Her car tires had to be straight, lights not being used were to be turned off, toys in their specified place, and so on. If the inspection didn’t go well as was often the case with two small children, the rest of the night, according to Julie, would be “pure hell.”

  Julie recalled a time when Chuck had found a prescription in her car. He was leaving for work and placed the prescription bottle on top of the television with the warning that he had counted the pills and that they, and she, had better be there when he got home. I inquired if he was trying to help her fight her addiction. She explained that he knew that you couldn’t put drugs in front of an addict anymore than you can put a drink in front of an alcoholic and expect compliance. She insisted that Chuck was being controlling and punitive.

  A large portion of the domestic violence revolved around discussions Chuck and Julie had over his behavior outside of the home. Chuck frequented a major highway that runs through Orlando named Orange Blossom Trail where strip clubs line the street and “women for hire” roam late at night. He also registered with several dating services in the area. When asked years later during police interviews if there had been any sexual abuse toward her by Chuck, Julie would emphatically state never. She added that their lovemaking was the only strand left that bound them in their stressed marriage for as long as they were together.

  Chuck, while in Fountainview, California on business was arrested for DWI. His driving privileges were suspended for 90 days and he received three years of probation. He is ordered into an alcohol rehabilitation program. His employer, a major defense contractor, however, enforced stringent rules regarding the abuse of alcohol and an investigation by the Department of Defense was conducted. The result was a threatened loss of his security clearance and possible termination. He was given a choice to attend an alcohol rehabilitation program.

  In his deposition Chuck stated, “Lockheed-Martin is fairly progressive in terms of their EAP programs and stuff. But there was a message there that ‘hey, you have got a choice, you can hit the street or you can do this’. And I did.” In June of 1993, he completed a two-week rehabilitation program in West Palm Beach, Florida. Before that, he attended an outpatient rehabilitation program for alcohol abuse from March through July of 1992 at the Metropolitan Clinic of Counseling.

  In December of 1993, Julie’s parents, along with son John who was there on a rare visit, did witness an occasion when Chuck battered Julie while at their home. John intervened and prevented Chuck from any further physical abuse of Julie. Between May of 1993 and August of 1994, Chuck attends an after-care program because of a substance abuse hospitalization. His position is once again in jeopardy with his employer and his security clearance is revoked. He experiences alcoholic blackouts. On June 1, 1993, he entered in-patient treatment and recognizes that his anger triggers his relapses.

  During most of 1994, he forces Julie to dance at an adult lounge. Chuck later wrote that, “she was forced by me to work as a topless dancer...This totally humiliated her as a human being...I was unfaithful, alcoholic, physically and emotionally abusive. He continued with, “I was very physically, emotionally, and financially abusive...I beat her once so badly from head to toe she couldn’t walk for a month.” Photographs were available to confirm the violence.

  Ashley admitted to a psychologist in 1994 that she was frightened of Chuck because she witnessed his violence but she never suffered any physical or sexual abuse. Charley as reported by Julie, although intimidated and verbally abused, relied on his mother to protect him. Julie reported that Chuck screamed at Charley and belittled him. She later stated, “If he wasn’t being spanked, he was being threatened.” Her parents stated years later to psychiatrist Dr. Michael S. Maher, “that Chuck had threatened to spank Charley in a way which was uncalled for in the context of reasonable discipline.”

  One night that threat became reality. Chuck stated in his deposition, “One time I spanked Charley very hard when he was about three or four, and it bruised his butt I think to the point where he was black and blue for a week or so.” Upset after the spanking, Julie had several drinks. Chuck called the police for domestic violence claiming Julie had battered him. According to the police report of the incident, they arrived at 2:27 AM and found Julie distraught, intoxicated, and naked on the front lawn. Because of the alcohol o
n her breath, Chuck was ordered to remove Charley from the residence and to take him to the ’s. Julie, fearful that night that she would lose Charley to HRS, decided to never drink again.

  On a summer July day in 1994, Chuck operated his boat in a dangerous and reckless manner. It terrified Julie and son Charley so much that she leapt from the boat with Charley in her arms while it was in motion. Ashley cried hysterically and screamed from the pier. After swimming to the safety of shore with her son, Julie called 911.

  Julie is served with a Protection against Domestic Violence petition in October of 1994. She, Ashley, and Charley are forced from the Clermont home. Chuck charges that Julie attacked him with a knife. In December, Chuck petitions the court to invalidate the injunction against Julie. In January, the Judge dissolves the injunction for protection.

  In February of 1995, Julie’s Methadone dosage is down to 25 milligrams a day. Although she has made substantial progress, she falters and is convicted of a DUI offense. Her driving privileges are suspended for six months. She is placed on probation for twelve months and given fifty hours of community service.

  In March, Chuck is hospitalized with second-degree burns over 35-40% of his body including his face. He set himself a blaze twice in gasoline fires while burning trash in his backyard. He repeatedly placed garbage inside the fireplace and burned it without a safety screen causing him to start fires inside the house that brought fear and concern to Julie, Ashley, and Charley.

  Chuck was arrested by the Clermont Police on March 7, 1995, and charged with Battery/Domestic Violence. “...I just took her and threw her as hard as I could into the bay of the gas station. And I mean, she went flying, literally like sprawled out on the floor.” He provided proof that he attended a Domestic Violence Prevention Program and the case was not prosecuted. He later stated in his deposition that he never attended the program. Six days after the arrest, he filed once again for a divorce. In April, he filed for temporary custody of Charley. In May, Julie completed her Methadone program. The custody battle over Ashley intensified.