THROUGH A
MOTHER’S EYES
A True Story
Cary Allen Stone
Copyright © 2002 by Cary Allen Stone
Revised edition 2015
ASIN: B0169ET3QC
ISBN-13: 978-1502771698
ISBN-10: 1502771691
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the author.
For Charley
Thanks very much for sending me “Through a Mother’s Eyes.” You certainly capture many of the central issues I have repeatedly seen in mothers who kill their children. You also did a great job of presenting it without bias. I believe the public is well served by seeing inside the mind of a woman in such a complicated case of child murder.
––Phillip J. Resnick, M.D.
Prologue
This story is told as if legal counsel is presenting Julie’s case to a jury. There never was a trial because Julie pled guilty. In this way, the reader is given the opportunity to examine the facts and reach their own conclusions.
Whenever “filicide” occurs—the taking of a child’s life by a parent—the question of why is always asked. As human beings, we believe there should always be answers to our questions but we never seem to leave this particular arena with a clear understanding. Although there are clinical psychiatric papers on the subject, the nonprofessional remains largely in the dark. The news media provides the gruesome details then quickly moves on to blind-side us by the next tragedy.
This book will describe the chronology of events that led up to the murder of a small child by his mother. While walking in her shoes, you will also gain insight into how our legal system works from arrest through incarceration. By examining Julie’s life, you will be better able to recognize the warning signs.
If you are in fear of domestic violence from your spouse, former spouse, a family member, or someone you know please go to Solutions to find help and legal remedies. There are alternatives that are available 24 hours a day, every day of the year.
I am not a psychiatrist, social worker, law enforcement officer, politician, lawyer, or judge. I’m a writer. The story told inside these pages is true, told without prejudice. I will not taint, color, or influence the story in any way and I followed my obligation to be accurate, methodical, and objective. Julie, in her own words, will tell you why she chose to do what she did. The story is compelling, overpowering, and riveting.
Since there was never a trial, in this case you will be a jury member of sorts. You will not be deciding guilt or innocence. Julie accepted responsibility when she confessed and pled guilty. Instead, as you read these pages, I want you to decide if the events in Julie’s life were reasonable catalysts for her fatal action. By reasonable I do not mean justifiable. I mean that you can understand what motivated her to murder her son.
It is imperative for you to know that I was not solicited by Julie to write her story. She is a quiet, reserved, conservative woman who shuns all publicity. She reluctantly agreed to talk with me and tell her story. I knew Julie as a casual acquaintance and we had occasional conversations before the murder. It is also important for you to understand that Julie, because of the publication of this book, will not receive any form of financial compensation or consideration for an early release. Julie will only receive the personal satisfaction of knowing that through the complete exposition and examination of her life she may prevent another tragedy.
Additionally, it is important to understand that this book is not intended in any way to seek sympathy for Julie. What she did was unequivocally, legally and morally wrong. Julie has never contested that and fully accepts her punishment. She is also punished by the nightmare she lives with every second of time.
Julie’s contribution to this examination of filicide is not only crucial, but invaluable. It is a rare, uncompromised, first person discussion. I can assure you, as I listened and watched Julie struggle to retell the heart-wrenching story, I observed an amazing, even extraordinary level of courage that I had never witnessed before.
I believe we need to examine ourselves. We need to understand how things can go so very wrong in our lives and how many things influence our decision-making. We need to notice trends in our lives that have the potential of taking us in the wrong direction.
I strongly believe that knowledge is invaluable and can make the difference in decision-making. Perhaps what you learn from Julie’s story will make you better able to help someone that feels trapped.
This book will be difficult to read. By the time you reach the last chapter, you will feel different. This book will cause you to look at your own fears and beliefs. Through a Mother’s Eye’s, Julie's story, is as much a reevaluation of us, as it is about Julie.
CAS
1
The following chronology will take you from Julie’s birth until the day before the murder. These few pages represent years of time passage. It is impossible to capture growth, moods, and changes in personalities here. It is intended to provide a time line and a background staging point for the remainder of the chapters.
Donald married for the first time while he was in the Army. After ten years of marriage, she left him. In the divorce, he is given partial custody of Donald, Jr. His wife then left the state with their only child and he never saw them again. He then met and dated Marseille. She became pregnant. The pregnancy “pushed them a little quicker” into marriage. Although Marseille had a difficult labor, they became parents when daughter Julie was born on March 15, 1963.
A brief time later, they relocated from Indianapolis, Indiana, to Winter Park, Florida where they lived in a middle-class neighborhood. Marseille was a homemaker and Donald a white-collar, defense industry worker. The family found their religious strength in the Presbyterian Church but while Julie believes in God, she remained largely outside of any church affiliation.
They decided they wanted another child, but Donald was unable because after Julie’s birth he had a vasectomy. They decided to adopt. When Julie was four, Donald and Marseille brought home two-year-old John from an orphanage. Although not born of the same parents, Julie would later reflect that she and John could have been paternal twins because they looked so much alike. John, abandoned by his natural parents, had already been in several foster homes. In all likelihood, his abandonment was the reason that he suffered physical and emotional problems. He did not speak, and experienced projectile vomiting for years.
Neither Donald nor Marseille were prepared to deal with the extreme difficulties that came with John’s arrival. There was no educational assistance, training, or support system in place to help them. Donald began to drink excessively to cope with the pain and stress. He withdrew from his responsibilities at home and the problems with John. He left the burden of child rearing solely to Marseille.
In addition, his position at Martin-Marietta required extensive travel during the weekdays. According to Julie, her father was a very intelligent man with a very good job. Unfortunately, that job left him with little time at home with most of the time spent there inebriated. Because of Donald’s non-involvement in the family, Marseille, normally a loving and caring woman took out her frustration and anger on John through painful verbal and physical abuse. She would beat him until black and blue because he was a “difficult” child and threw up all of the time.
She was described by Julie as someone often living in denial and unable to handle any pressure. Consequently, John suffered severely at the hands of his adopted mother. Marseille, Julie later said, preferred little girls instead and all of the things that they represen
ted.
Julie later would recall that the predominant thinking in the household was “whatever happens in the family, stays in the family.” The police were never notified of the abuse toward John. For the most part that just wasn’t done until the last decade of the millennium. That philosophy would prove to be a fatal way of thinking throughout Julie’s life. The level of communication between the family members also continued to be tragically poor at best.
Years later, Donald and Marseille would look back and lament that the discipline exacted on John was excessive and unnecessary. But at the time, they sincerely believed that what they had done was right.
One of the sad by-products of John’s abuse was the devastating effect it had on a young girl, his stepsister Julie. Daily, she observed the trauma inflicted on him and it frightened her. It caused her to reconsider her own standing in her mother’s eyes. Julie was too young to understand all of the intricacies and to take an active part in stopping the abuse. When she looked to her father to prevent the abuse, she found a man unable to intervene. She then became angry with him for his inability to stop it. Julie could only watch in horror. It scarred her emotionally.
But while John was living a life of torment, Julie enjoyed by her own admission a comfortable, warm, and wonderful childhood. She suffered absolutely no physical, or verbal abuse of any kind in spite of the intense fears she had about her mother’s actions. The difference in the parental treatment of the children, however, would eventually cause significant ill feelings and resentment between Julie and John. Julie did have to contend with her mother’s excessive domineering. Marseille’s was not a normal mother-daughter protective kind of dominance but rather it was of an unnatural, interfering, or controlling nature. The fact that Julie continuously backed down and gave in to her mother’s dominance caused her consequential problems throughout the rest of her life.
Born with an introverted nature, Julie became even more so while watching John’s suffering. Her personality along with the predominant philosophy in the household of dismissing family difficulties led her to withdraw and never discuss with her parents problems that she was having. She kept everything inside from a very young age and dealt with them on her own terms.
The turbulent relationship between Marseille and John finally settled down and eventually both developed a close relationship around the time John reached his mid-teens. The underlying reasons that Marseille specifically had for perpetrating the abuse would remain unclear, undefined, and mere speculation within the walls of the family unit.
John left home with his father’s permission in 1981at the age of seventeen and joined the Marines. He went on to a successful, distinguished, and honorable military career. While overseas, he married and fathered two children. He continues to reside in Europe.
Around the age of twelve, Julie met a neighborhood boy named David and the two became steadfast friends. Both were able to find refuge and comfort in one another in their preteen years. They liked each other. But as so often happens with children the two went their separate ways for a time.
During 1977, Marseille’s nephew Mike, of whom she was very fond, came to live with the family. At the age of thirteen Julie’s live-in cousin perpetrated a violent sexual assault against her. Julie was traumatized but again the family walls went up. A year later, the assault and her inner feelings about the abuse of John finally took its toll. At age fourteen, Julie took an overdose of Vivian. She was found unconscious, was revived, and hospitalized for a brief time. Quietly, she returned to the family with no attempt made to diagnose or treat her. She received no psychiatric counseling. The family would, at no time, ever participate in therapy or family counseling of any kind.
While attending Winter Park High School, Julie was an average student, quiet, and well liked. She enjoyed the company of a few close friends. In 1980, at sixteen years of age, Julie tried marijuana for the first time. She was involved in a car accident because of it and never tried it again.
She and David once again rekindled their special relationship although by this time David had a girlfriend and Julie a boyfriend. They decided it would be fun to double date. But again, they were separated. This time her father’s employment required that they relocate to Arizona. His position there lasted only a short time, however, and once again the family moved. Soon they were back in the familiar territory of Winter Park.
After high school, David attended the University of Florida. Julie studied to become a Licensed Practical Nurse and began to work in the health care field for several Orlando doctors.
One night, while walking along Park Avenue in Winter Park, Julie ran into her old and dear friend David. Both were not seeing any one at the time and they decided to begin dating. They continued to date until David asked for her hand in marriage. Just twenty years old, Julie accepted. Her parents were disappointed when she impulsively and secretly eloped with David and they married at the courthouse April 4, 1983. A formal wedding had been originally planned for December. Marseille and Donald insisted that the planned wedding take place and it did on December 17.
But then Julie realized that, “I loved him. He was a very, very dear friend. But, I wasn’t in-love with him.” She approached her mother and told her that she didn’t think the marriage should continue. I just couldn’t. It wasn’t going to work. It wasn’t going to last. Something was missing.” The time she and David spent together was pleasant enough. But Julie felt that David was too young for marriage and often found him to be irresponsible. Marseille was stunned and greatly disappointed. She aggressively insisted that Julie continue with the relationship and that the union was a good one. Marseille’s answer to Julie’s concerns about the strength of the relationship was to have a child.
Julie felt bullied and tormented by her. She equated her mother’s reaction to her mother’s behavior toward John years earlier. Marseille insisted and Julie, long used to giving in to her dominant parent, relented and backed down. At the same time, Julie’s new in-laws offered cash reward to the first in their family to have a child. There had not been a daughter in their family for generations. Ashley was born on November 26, 1984.
Marseille was overjoyed. She locked on to the newborn from birth refusing to let go. She behaved as if the baby was her child having already prepared a room in her house for Ashley’s arrival. The newborn, Julie believed, was what her mother really did want more than anything. Ashley would be her mother’s “third child.” In Julie’s eyes, while an exceptional grandmother, Marseille’s consumption of Ashley had effectively removed the necessary contact and bonding needed between the new mother and the newborn. Julie deeply resented her mother’s interference and the problems that it brought. It caused problems for her and David, more so she believed than they had had before. As had always been true in the past, Julie was unable to control her mother and the domination continued.
Julie, in spite of Ashley’s arrival, remained at odds in her relationship with David. She felt that he deserved better. She knew what was missing and what wasn’t right about the marriage. She cared a great deal for David but not in a way that a spouse should. They were friends. And in Julie’s mind that’s all they would ever be. The subsequent divorce from David was finalized on August 11, 1986. The divorce according to Julie was amicable and both remained friends. They shared custody of Ashley for years although Julie was given primary custody. David paid child support. That arrangement continued without incident until David later remarried.
Shortly after the end of her marriage to David, her father tried to help his daughter move on. He introduced her in September of 1986 to a young man and co-worker named Chuck. They began dating. Chuck was the son of a Brigadier General, whose marriage, according to Julie, was less than civil and they went through an ugly divorce. The General was an alcoholic. His wife ended her life by an apparent suicide.
Their son Chuck followed his father’s example and enlisted in the Army. He served in Vietnam as a Special Forces Army Ranger. There he saw combat and
received several battlefield commendations. During the time he spent with Julie, he would rarely if at all talk about his days in Vietnam. He attained the rank of Captain there. He received an appointment to West Point Military Academy. Progressing in his military career, Chuck decided to resign from the Army in order to find another life in the civilian sector. He found employment at Martin-Marietta where he advanced to Manager Product Operations––Air Defense. It was there that he came to know Donald. He would later confess to Julie that he deeply regretted leaving the Army.
Julie’s first impression of Chuck, then 36, was that he was extremely intelligent and had an air of military bearing about him. At age twenty-three, Julie found herself “blindly in-love” with Chuck. This was in drastic contrast to more laid-back, passive David who Julie felt was somewhat a “momma’s boy.” To her Chuck was a good-looking man who was very muscular and in great shape. He was a strong and decisive man. She loved him so much she said that she “would do anything for him.” Chuck stated later that he fell in love with her and believed that “she worshipped me.” In time, he would become another person who would overpower and dominate Julie.
Julie accidentally broke her elbow while at Chuck’s house. It would be the beginning of one of Julie’s worst traveled roads ultimately leading to a severe Substance Abuse Disorder. The emergency room doctor prescribed Vicodin, a derivative of Hydrocodone, for her injury. Hydrocodone is one of the most potent pain relievers ever manufactured.
Hydrocodone tartrate is an opioid analgesic with multiple actions qualitatively similar to those of codeine. It is subject to the Federal Controlled Substance Act. It can be habit-forming. When combined with alcohol, Hydrocodone can produce further brain impairment and confusion––Physicians Desk Reference
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