Through a Mother's Eyes Read online

  In order for the court to find the defendant “not guilty by reason of insanity,” certain criteria must be met as discussed in Chapter Three. The court uses the McNaughten Rule as its guide. The defendant must have suffered from a severe mental illness such that they could not distinguish fantasy from reality, or suffered from uncontrollable impulsive behavior, suffered from a psychosis, or that the defendant’s mental illness is not due to mental deficiency because of age or some type of injury, or because of lack of intelligence.

  If it is proven that the defendant was unable to distinguish right from wrong then the court has to find that there could not be criminal intent and subsequently no crime. The defendant would then be ordered to a psychiatric facility rather than to prison. A trial would take place only if the defendant were once again declared sane.

  Both the court appointed psychiatrists and those commissioned by Mark O’Mara’s defense team rendered the following opinions. There was an even division between them regarding Julie’s sanity at the time of the murder.

  Dr. Robert G. Kirkland, on behalf of the State of Florida, completed his examination of Julie at the Orange County Jail on June 23, 1997. His diagnosis was Major Depression, Moderate, responding to medication (narcotic dependence in remission), Personality Disorder, NOS, multiple stressors.

  In his conclusion he stated:

  “It is my opinion that [Julie] appreciates the charges against her, and the range and nature of possible penalties. She understands the adversary nature of the legal process. She is able to disclose pertinent facts to her Attorney. She is able to relate to her Attorney, and assist him in preparing her defense. She has full capacity to challenge prosecution, witnesses, and testify relevantly. She is able to manifest appropriate courtroom behavior. She is motivated to help herself in the Legal process, and is able to cope with the stress of incarceration before trial. In summary, it is my opinion that the defendant is competent to proceed. It is also my opinion that, at the time of the commission of the alleged offense: 1. She was suffering from a major mental disorder, namely Major Depression, complicated by on-going abuse of narcotics. 2. Despite this mental disorder, she knew what she was doing, knew the consequences, and knew it was wrong.”

  O’Mara requested a psychiatric evaluation by Dr. Michael S. Maher who also interviewed Chuck (November 20 and December 31, 1996, April 8 and 25, 1997) as well as Donald and Marseille, Julie’s parents (May 12, 1997).

  In his Forensic Report, Dr. Maher stated:

  “Julie is suffering from; Axis I Major Depression, Recurrent––Severe Substance Dependence––Hydrocodone. The patient is currently competent to proceed with matters before the Court regarding her criminal charges. The patient was incompetent at the time of the offense. She specifically meets the McNaughten Standard for insanity at the time, as a consequence of her underlying mental illness and her absolute and certain, although delusional, belief that her actions were necessary and justified in protecting her son from a fate worst than death. Julie currently understands that her son died at her hands and that she is charged with first-degree murder in his death. She appreciates the gravity of her situation, understands the possible penalties, and has the capacity to work with her attorneys in a reasonable and rational manner.

  Her motivation to help herself in the legal system is quite weak. She has no interest in life and no desire to go on living. However, she has been minimally cooperative. She has a tremendous sense of guilt and remorse regarding her actions, and apparently feels that her present cooperation is the least that she can do, considering the pain that she has inflicted on her parents, her husband, and others. She is competent to stand trial.”

  Another psychiatrist selected by the State of Florida, Dr. Richard A. Greer, conducted an independent medical evaluation of Julie at the Orange County Jail and filed his report June 28, 1997. He, too, concluded that she suffered a history of recurring Major Depression from Moderate to Severe in addition to a history of Polysubstance Abuse. But he did not find any objective evidence that supported the fact that the narcotic substance abuse and dependence created any psychotic or delusional thinking. He wrote:

  “In my opinion, with reasonable medical certainty, Julie is competent to proceed to trial...Finally, it is my opinion, with reasonable medical certainty, Julie was legally sane at the time of the alleged offense, November 7, 1996. Although it is likely she suffered from a depressive disorder and a degree of narcotic intoxication, her mental illness did not reach the level required by the McNaughten standard for legal insanity. Specifically, [Julie] did not suffer a mental illness which caused her not to know the nature and quality/consequences of her acts or their wrongfulness if committed as alleged.

  She did not appear to be operating under the influence of delusional thinking or auditory hallucinations. Even if delusional thinking or auditory hallucinations were present at the time, again they would not have caused [Julie] not to know the nature and quality of her acts or their wrongfulness if committed as alleged.”

  O’Mara sought and received an evaluation of Julie by psychotherapist Dr. Elias Gongogra who saw Julie on May 20 and 30, 1997 at the Orange County Correctional Facility. He also found that Julie suffered from “Major Depressive Disorder, Recurrent.” But he added “Severe With Psychotic Features, Opioid-Induced Persisting Dementia, and Dependent Personality Disorder” specific to the time of the events leading to her arrest. His evaluation involved the comparison of various testing techniques Julie had undergone over the years. He closed his report with the following:

  “It is my professional opinion that at the time of Charley’s death [Julie’s] judgment and reasoning abilities were so seriously impaired by years of opioid abuse that she was unable to distinguish right from wrong. It is my impression that her reasoning abilities had been so impaired and her perceived choices had been so reduced by her drug abuse as well as by outside pressures from those around her (particularly her husband Chuck), that the “unthinkable” appeared to be a reasonable choice to her.

  Dr. Jeffrey Danzinger, defense psychiatrist who had previously seen Julie professionally held steadfast in his position that Julie was suffering from Major Depression, Severe, and delusional thinking at the time of the murder. His stance will be further addressed later in this chapter.

  At the end of his report, Dr. Kirkland made reference to research completed by Dr. Phillip J. Resnick whose report “Child Murder by Parents: A Psychiatric Review of Filicide” was published in the American Journal of Psychiatry in September of 1969. Dr. Resnick had reviewed the world literature on 131 cases of child murder and had arrived at several profound conclusions that Dr. Kirkland felt applied to Julie’s case.

  Dr. Resnick coined the term filicide to describe the murder of a child older than twenty-four hours by a parent of the victim. He used the term neonaticide to define the murder of an unwanted child within hours of its birth.

  Dr. Resnick established five categories of child murder by parents: altruistic, acutely psychotic, unwanted child, accidental and spousal revenge. He used the above two cases to illustrate what he called “altruistic” filicide or murders committed “out of love.” In each case the murder was carried out with the belief that it was for the child’s own good. Almost half of the murders fell under the “altruistic” filicide.

  In his report, Dr. Resnick found that:

  1. Maternal filicide overshadows paternal by a factor of two

  2. Mothers were between the ages of 20 and 50

  3. 88% of the mothers were married

  4. Victim’s ages ranged from a few days to as old as 20 years

  5. The younger the child, the more likely that the suicidal mother will see the child as a possession and feel inseparable from them.

  6. Mothers more often chose drowning, strangulation, or gassing their victims.

  7. 67% of the mothers were classified as psychotic.

  8. Depression was twice as strong a factor in mothers than fathers.

  It is important to not
e that because of the case being dealt with in this book all references are being made to mothers although fathers have and do commit filicide. Where parental suicide was involved, each parent claimed that they killed the child because they felt that they could not abandon the child. Dr. Resnick found that:

  1. The suicidal mother sees her child as an extension of herself, develops a stronger bond with the child, and projects her own unacceptable symptoms to the child. Sparing the victim from the same fate was common.

  2. In many cases, the evidence suggested that the act perpetrated on the child was “displaced” from the aggressor’s mother, father, sibling, or spouse.

  3. After the “altruistic” filicide, there is often an immediate release of tension, which is believed to be the reason for the failed suicide attempt by the parent. The parent will appear dazed and mechanical but will have a tendency to recover.

  Dr. Resnick also determined that seventy-five percent of the parents had psychiatric symptoms before the act was carried out often discussing openly their death and their concern about the future and well being of their children. Surprisingly, a large percentage of the parents were under psychiatric care before the murder.

  Julie’s life, Dr. Kirkland believed, fell into the altruistic and spousal revenge categories. Of all the psychiatrists that evaluated Julie no other found spousal revenge to be the case. After Dr. Kirkland’s evaluation, Julie wrote a letter to her attorney. In it, she stated that Dr. Kirkland did not conduct an evaluation but rather, she suggests, an accusatory, sarcastic, and unprofessional inquisition.

  Each psychiatrist that evaluated Julie relied upon histories taken from her father and mother, her husband Chuck, witnesses, criminal records, health records, divorce records, custody hearing records, psychiatric testing, and personal interviews with Julie herself. They had a wealth of verifiable, collaborated facts with which to draw conclusions from. There was no need to surmise or hypothesize about the events that led up to the night of November 6, 1996. Yet all agreed on one issue––Julie loved Charley.

  In a 1996 article published in USA Today Magazine from the Society for the Advancement of Education, Inc., titled “Why Do Mothers Kill Their Children’ we find alarming statistics. The article states that a University of South Carolina School of Medicine study found that 80% of the women who perpetrated such an act upon their children: Were suffering from a serious, diagnosable mental illness, such as depression, schizophrenia, or mental retardation, when they committed the crimes. Yet, only 20% were receiving any type of counseling, medication, or other treatment for their mental illness at the time of the murders. Extreme personal problems and/or overwhelming emotional stress at the time of the event were major factors.

  Forensic psychologist Geoffrey McKee of the University of South Carolina School of Medicine’s William Hall Psychiatric Institute is quoted:

  “The method of the murders suggests that the murders mostly were the result of distorted reality or were unplanned, evolving from extreme levels of frustration, anger, and/or depression... When women get to this point, they don’t emotionally distance themselves from their children. The killing is intimate.”

  Dr. McKee evaluated Susan Smith the South Carolina mother who in 1996 rolled her car into a lake with her two sons left in their rear car seats where upon submersion they drown. Most of the literature referencing filicide is discussed post-Susan Smith.

  Staff writer Laura Griffin of the Dallas Morning News wrote in June of 1996 an article titled, “Complex factors frequently surround ‘unthinkable act’ Researchers say that when mothers kill kids, they may be mentally ill, under great stress.”

  She states that in the United States 600 or more women every year kill their children “to the disbelief of a society that sees mothers as nurturers, not murderers.” She quotes Dr. Kenneth Dekleva, assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas:

  “The ‘why’ in this is so complex...In a case where the crime is so horrible and so tragic, psychiatry may not provide all the information. We may still not know the answer in the final analysis.”

  The articles repeat many of the same conclusions that Dr. Resnick found to be true thirty years earlier. Researchers also suggest causes like accidental abuse, genetics, revenge, mood disorders, Munchausen’s syndrome by proxy––an effort to gain attention, diminished child-rearing abilities, environmental stress, biological factors, and postpartum depression. A few scientists have suggested that menstrual cycles could be a factor, while others said that light and dark cycles (day/night) affect women.

  The research is diverse and seemingly incomprehensible but at least efforts are being made to find and verify causes. Stress, genetics, and temperament appear to be the leading causes and are what current treatments are geared toward. What we do hear recurring throughout each discussion of why is the word––depression. Again, research conducted of available information on depression and Major Depression/Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) produced a flood of articles.

  Deborah M. Deren wrote an article in January of 1997 titled “You can’t treat depression on your own.” In it, she provides us with a clear and understandable definition of depression:

  “Let me pause for a moment to explain exactly what I mean when I talk about depression. I’m not referring to the normal down periods that everyone goes through once in a while, that can be brought on by a rainy day, a broken heart, the flu or even for no particular reason. We mope around, listen to sad music and feel sorry for ourselves. These moods go away within a couple of days, and we can enjoy life again. Clinical depression is much more than that, and is comparable to a down mood as much as a sneeze is comparable to pneumonia. It is an illness that affects a person in many different ways. It can affect appetite, sleep patterns, powers of concentration, and even slow down movement and speech. While the predominant feeling depression brings is often sadness or a blue mood, it can also be a numb, empty feeling, anxiety, hopelessness, loss of self-esteem or self worth, inability to make decisions or a combination of these. Unlike a passing mood, clinical depression dominates a person’s life and brings it to a screeching halt.”

  The number one cause of suicide is untreated depression. Organizations such as the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI) have evidence to support the fact that women suffer and are more vulnerable to higher rates of depression then men.

  Dr. Ellen Leibenluft of the National Institute of Mental Health in her article “Why Are So Many Women Depressed?” writes:

  “Few people realize just how common depression is, how severe it can be or that it is most prevalent among women... Epidemiological studies indicate that 12 percent of U.S. women––compared with only 6 percent of U.S. men––have suffered from clinically significant depression at some time in their lives. The symptoms of depression range from uncomfortable to debilitating: sleep disturbances, hopelessness, feelings of worthlessness, difficulty concentrating, fatigue, and sometimes even delusions.”

  Dr. Lewis L. Judd, from the Department of Psychiatry, University of California, San Diego wrote in his article The Clinical Course of Unipolar Major Depressive Disorders:

  “The treatment of unipolar MDD has evolved from incarceration, exorcism, and prayer to classic psychoanalysis, and now, in the modern era to treatment with empirically proven, effective anti-depressant medications and depression-specific brief psychotherapies.”

  It was also noted by Dr. Resnick thirty years earlier that several of the women who murdered their children were already receiving psychiatric treatment. We can only speculate as to whether or not psychiatric treatment in Julie’s life would have spared Charley’s life. Indeed, several psychiatric professionals who had the opportunity to evaluate Julie after November 1996 had difficulty in agreeing if she was even sane at the time of the murder.

  The following exchanges are between Assistant State Attorney Dorothy Sedgwick and Dr. Jeffrey Danzinger. They were made during his deposition regarding Julie’s p
revious psychiatric counseling (he treated her as far back as 1990 and reviewed all of the reports to date.) What he has to say seems largely appropriate at this point in light of all the previous statements made by the medical professionals in this chapter. The deposition was conducted on August 26, 1997. Julie’s attorney, Mark O’Mara, was present.

  SEDGWICK: Okay. Now, did you reach an opinion as to whether or not at the time of killing her son she knew that it was wrong to kill her son?

  DANZINGER: I did reach an opinion. It’s my opinion at the time of the offense, because of her major depression with psychosis; she did not know that what she was doing was wrong.

  SEDGWICK: Okay, Major depression with what kind of psychosis?

  DANZINGER: Major depression with psychotic features.

  SEDGWICK: What are the psychotic features that she had?

  DANZINGER: The psychotic features are evidenced here by first, the suicide plan; secondly, her delusional belief that the child, if she returned to the father, would be tormented, abused, and mistreated in such a way that the only way to save him was to kill him and join him in heaven, with her dying alongside him.

  SEDGWICK: Okay. Now, why is the suicide plan psychotic?

  DANZINGER: The suicide in and of itself, or having suicidal ideas in and of itself, does not qualify for psychosis. However, it’s my opinion here, if you look at the context, if you look at the whole picture, that she believed that the only alternative left to her was suicide, and this then ties in with having to kill her son to save him from a fate worse than death.

  SEDGWICK: Okay. And what is psychotic again?

  DANZINGER: Psychotic refers to a disturbance either in the flow of thought, or the content of thought, or false sense of perceptions.