Gone Forever

by Diane Fanning

  McFarland then quoted Proverbs 3:5-6: “Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.”

  “Lord knows,” he added, “I’ve been leaning on him a lot lately.” His last words galled and infuriated many of the spectators in the room.

  After this statement, Shannon Rader-Brooks spoke on behalf of Child Protective Services. “I believe these children have been deprived of their natural parents through the actions of their father. They need to have security and stability of parents for guidance and support in a home.

  “Closure is important in their grief. They need to adjust to the loss of the mother and the loss of their father.” She then noted that the boys would be 32, 30 and 26 years old when McFarland has his first opportunity for parole. “They have begun recovery, but it is going to be a long process. Only time will tell.”

  Ann Carr stepped forward next, echoing the desire for the children to be able to start their lives anew. Then she turned her comments to Rick: “He led them to believe that the children might be in some way responsible for their mother leaving. They need to move on to learn to trust, hope and love again.”

  Rick’s attorney requested a final visit between the boys and their father. The boys’ attorney voiced a strong objection. Rick’s attorney then said, “A goodbye visit is normal. It will help them get closure. The therapist says this is a good thing.”

  The representative for the district attorney’s office admitted that this kind of visit is customary, but objected to it just the same. Her objections were seconded by the boys’ attorney and the attorney representing Sue McFarland’s family.

  Squabbling finished, Judge Nellermoe made a quick decision. “There is clear and convincing evidence to terminate the parental rights of Richard McFarland and it is in the best interests of the children.”

  Turning to McFarland, Nellermoe added, “There are very few gifts you can give your children, and this relinquishment of rights is one of them. Seeing them again should be the choice of the children. They can do so as adults.”

  The end of this formality cleared the way for the boys to find the safety and security they needed to heal and grow. In New Jersey, Sue’s childhood friend Sandy Riggs explored the possibility of adopting all three boys—she was already Timmy’s godmother. At the time, Sandy and her husband and children were in the process of moving back to St. Louis. Both families, and Rick, were supportive of this couple. They both looked into their hearts long and hard. They considered the impact on their own children—one of whom was a special needs child who required an extraordinary amount of attention. In the end, although they wanted to provide a home for Sue’s boys, they decided it would not be fair to their kids.

  In Georgia, a married cousin of Sue McFarland agreed to adopt James and Timmy. Sue’s sister Ann talked with the couple at great length. She wanted them to understand the depth and breadth of this responsibility before they assumed it. She wanted them to be certain of their decision. She wanted their commitment to be for keeps.

  The Georgia couple assured Ann and Gary that they were aware of the difficulties ahead—they were prepared for the challenges of raising these two boys into whole and healed men. They were committed. They would care for these boys throughout their childhood.

  Two weeks after James and Timmy arrived at their new home—before they had a chance to adjust to their new surroundings—the couple changed their minds. They told Ann, “Gee, we can’t do this . . .”

  Ann pleaded with them not to disrupt the boys’ lives again. She reiterated her willingness to adopt one of the children and begged them to keep one of the boys. Their answer was no. Once again, pleas went out to members of both the McFarland and Smith families to make a commitment to one of the boys. Only Ann and Gary were willing, and in a position to immediately assume the responsibility for a child. Again and again, they begged the Georgia couple to listen to the child welfare specialists and consider alternatives for permanent placement of the boys. Instead, without further word to Ann or Gary, they delivered James and Timmy back to their original foster family.

  Ann was devastated. She felt betrayed. She could not conceive of anyone—especially not a family member who claimed commitment and a Christian “calling” to nuture these children—displaying such a disregard for the longterm emotional well-being of her two young nephews.

  The machinations of one of the attorneys involved in the custody case left Ann Carr—an attorney in Missouri—with a jaded view of the ethical standards acceptable in Texas legal circles. Even more, she was appalled by the conduct of Sue’s divorce lawyer, Christine Tharp, who refused to refund even a portion of the $7,500 deposit Sue paid for her divorce. Any money Tharp returned would have gone to the estate for the care of the boys.

  Tharp insisted that she was within her legal rights to keep all of the deposit, because Sue had signed an agreement that stated the deposit was non-refundable. However, Tharp was unable or unwilling to produce a copy of that signed document—or copies of any of the billing documents—when Ann requested them.

  To add to Ann’s frustration, other Texas lawyers expressed outrage at Tharp’s refusal to refund a large portion of the deposit, but were not interested in pursuing the claim on behalf of the boys. More than one of them suggested that Ann should threaten Tharp with a wrongful death action based on the fact that when Tharp gave Sue the disk with the divorce papers, she contributed to Rick’s extreme action. Ann’s husband Gary wrote letters to the Texas Bar Association about the matter; but, in the end, Ann dropped the battle. It simply was not worth the stress it generated.

  His courtroom appearance over in Bexar County, Rick McFarland’s transfer to a prison in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice system was the next step in his incarceration. Before he left San Antonio, he called one of Sue’s neighborhood friends, Molly Matthews. “I’ll be gone for a long time,” he said.

  Molly, certain the only reason he called was to get information about the boys or to manipulate her into providing updates in the future, snapped a final response: “Look. I do not know anything about your kids. And I am not in touch with them. So don’t call me again.” She slammed down the phone and tried to shut down her memories to bury her anger, pain and grief.

  Indications were that Rick’s inability to get along with other inmates continued after he went into the custody of the state. In less than a year, he was housed in three different facilities. He started at the Garza West unit in Beeville—halfway between San Antonio and the Texas Gulf Coast.

  Next, he was transferred to the Robertson facility out in Abilene—not “the prettiest town” in Kansas that George Hamilton IV made famous in song, but the one in dusty west Texas out in the middle of nowhere. Then he was moved to the old Ellis unit in Huntsville—the east Texas prison that once housed Death Row.

  He was still there at Christmas 2004, where he generated a bounty of holiday letters to neighbors, family, friends and the author of this book. Each one had a short personalized message, but most of the contents were generic. They contained a page torn from an unidentified daily inspirational booklet dated November 14. On some copies, several lines were highlighted, including this one: “The Lord loves us and doesn’t want us to gossip about others, even those who have done something wrong.” The message from Rick McFarland was as subtle as a tsunami.

  Every card contained Rick’s handwritten poem, “Christmastide Reflections”:

  Sometimes our life is littered with troubles that hold us down like a heavyweight—

  Choices we make each day may buildup and direct which of life’s roads we negotiate.

  With the passage of time, we may come to understand that life is not always fair—

  Life is prone to accidental actions, some lead to radiant rejoice, others to darkest despair.

  ’Tis the Season to maybe stop holding life’s negatives, let them go, let them escape—

  Christmastide, let’s r
eflect on the life of Jesus Christ, whose birth we celebrate!

  Many were disgusted that Rick continued to hide behind the Bible. One line in particular, “Life is prone to accidental actions . . .” engendered the most visceral response among the recipients. Some shredded the card and its contents to bits. Others contemplated the appropriateness of another homicide in the McFarland family.

  Ann was stressed by the correspondence she received. Her brother Pete was enraged—he did not want Rick bugging his sister anymore.

  It was now time to erect a monument on Sue’s grave. Ann made one decision that she would not consider changing. The name on the stone would be “Susan Burris Smith.” “Rick McFarland defiled that marriage, and I didn’t want anything to do with him on that slate,” she said.

  She did feel, however, that William was old enough to provide input into the design of the stone. She wanted the memorial to be meaningful to him. William chose carved roses to immortalize his mother’s love of that flower. The original suggestion for the inscription used the phrase “beloved mother.” William wanted to change that. He wanted the wording to reflect who his mother was instead of how he felt about her. His words were, “Loving mother of William, James and Timothy. Always in our hearts.” The stone was installed on December 15.

  The boys remain vibrant in the hearts of many. Dreams of their future fill the air with good will—hopes that all three will grow to be happy, productive adults. Linda Schlather, principal of Woodridge Elementary, summed up these feelings well: “I want them to somehow one day forgive their dad enough to gain their own inner peace. I want them to be loved and nurtured. They are bright boys and have great potential—I hope it can be fulfilled.”

  With the coming of the new year of 2005, Sue’s boys, at last, had some of the stability and security that disappeared from their lives the night their mother died. The original foster parents adopted James and Timmy. The two boys had a new family, new names, new lives. All who have seen them report that they are doing well.

  William—the child who knew more than he may ever say—longed for goodness and safety. 2005 heralded the first step of this wish. He is in the middle of the adoption process. His new, single, middle-aged mother is devoted to him. With her education and background in child welfare and development, and without the distraction of a husband or other children, she is able to give him the one-on-one attention he needs. She wants him to be able to close the door to the past—but she hopes it is a glass door and he will be able to look back through it and keep his mother alive.

  William calls her “Mom.” The healing has begun.

  Afterword

  Throughout the process of researching and writing this book, I was haunted by questions. How could this happen? How could a professional, competent, take-charge woman be manipulated to her death in her own home? How could someone so well-loved by her family, friends, neighbors and co-workers be killed by the person closest to her?

  These questions all framed Susan McFarland as a victim—a tragedy in the making—nothing more. Then, after months of hearing stories from those who cared about Susan, a real person took shape in my mind—a complex woman with simple dreams and an unquenchable lust for life.

  One morning, while driving up Interstate Highway 35 to Austin, Susan McFarland became so real to me that I thought about how much more I would enjoy the ride if she were sitting beside me sharing stories and passing the time together. Then the realization struck—I would never be able to talk to her. I would never bump into her in Central Market. I would never laugh with her over lunch. I would never hear the sound of her voice or see the sunny glow of her smile.

  At that moment, I was struck by a sense of loss so visceral it took my breath away and formed pools of water in my eyes. The light of a life-enriching personality was snuffed out, never to brighten anyone’s day again. Gone forever—all because of the violent selfishness of one man.

  Beyond her loss of life, the scars inflicted on her three young boys will live forever. Never again will they be able to turn to the unconditional love and support of their mother. Never again can they seek her advice, her approval, her comfort. Surely, Rick McFarland must have understood—and not cared about—what he stole from them on that fatal night.

  How can we ever understand him or his motivation? He and Susan created life together—three young lives. How could he plot and plan to take her life away? How can we conceive of a heart that hard—that cold?

  Richard McFarland’s family was not forthcoming about the events and influences in his childhood that molded him into the man he became. But while in San Antonio, his mother made many remarks that granted a glimpse into a twisted concept of reality that could be the root of it all. Most telling of all was her insistence that Rick had many reasons to justify what he did.

  There are those in the community who question why, in the face of Rick’s strange personality and bizarre behavior, Susan did not act sooner—that she did not protect her sons better. If she had not hesitated, they insist, she would not have been lost.

  But to place blame on Susan is unfair and uninformed. We all sit here with the advantage of a hindsight that Susan did not possess. We all look at the problems in the family from the outside in. From that vantage point, the signs of destruction seem lit with neon. But Sue was in the eye of the storm. In her close-up view, all changes were gradual and slow. All sense of normalcy was skewed in a dysfunctional prism—blurred by the numbing pattern of everyday life.

  Yes, to some extent, she was in denial—blinded by an intense desire to have a normal marriage and family—crippled by her determination to take charge and fix all that was wrong. Most of us have, at one point or another, used denial as a coping mechanism for dealing with circumstances beyond our control. Many of us have stuck with a stubborn persistence in a belief that we could rectify a situation that is beyond repair.

  Susan had passed through that place and entered another. She had a plan in mind. She was moving forward.

  There is no way to be sure that any different or quicker action by Sue would have changed the outcome. No matter when she’d made the decision to leave—whether at the time she did, or two years earlier—Rick might still have set his plan into motion and acted upon it without warning. He was a passive-aggressive manipulator, who orchestrated the scenario that unfolded at 351 Arcadia. Once he realized she was going to leave, and he decided that was not acceptable, there was no line he would not cross.

  Sue was a planner, arranging with infinite detail for every eventuality before she made her move. She wanted to create the least disruption and trauma for her boys as possible. She even found housing for the husband she intended to evict from her home. If she had been more impulsive and just fled with her boys in the middle of the night, would she still be alive? Maybe. Maybe not.

  The fact is that the most dangerous time for any woman is that transition period from when she decides to leave, through the months of the separation. That is when many women are battered. That is when many women die. Statistics show that separated women are three times more likely than divorced women, and twenty-five times more likely than married women still living with their husbands, to be victimized.

  In 2002, the year of Susan’s death, 117 women in Texas were killed by a husband or a boyfriend. While women are less likely than men to be victims of violent crime overall, they are five to eight times more likely to be victimized by their intimate partner. On average, more than three women are murdered by those men in this country every day.

  Even if Sue had managed to keep her divorce a secret from her husband until the papers were served, she had no statistical guarantee that her fate would have changed, because of the elevated risk to her safety during the estrangement period. It is just as likely that a man in Richard McFarland’s state of mind may have made the same murder plans after he was forced from the family home as he did while he still resided there.

  Susan McFarland did not imagine her divorce would be free of conflict, but s
he did not envision the fatal consequences that did result. It is my fervent wish that her story not be repeated again.

  It is my hope that you have learned from reading this book and are now more aware of the warning signs of destruction and more cognizant of the risk of violence.

  I hope, if the need arises, you will be able to use this knowledge to save your life or to save the life of someone dear to you.

  That is my prayer.