STONE: So it wasn’t a bad marriage?
JULIE: The marriage was kind of an escape for me away from mother. I worked full time, 10-12 hours a day, every day of our marriage even nine months pregnant. I wanted us to be self-sufficient, and on our own. David never worked much during our marriage. He took a class here and there, helped a friend mow lawns occasionally, sold insurance. He sold none actually. He loved to spend money though. We didn’t have it. So, he would simply call his dad’s secretary and have money transferred into our account. So, we were always obligated to his parents. It wasn’t an escape after all. I just switched from one controlling mother to a mother-in-law. My mom was pulling in a different direction. I had to get out.
STONE: Did your relationship with David go sour?
JULIE: Yes, because he was aware of my drug abuse with the Hydrocodone after we’d split up. I’d never used while I was with him. It was shortly after we had split and he was aware of that. And aware that I had gone into drug treatment and, uh, he was always very supportive, and okay.
STONE: When did you break your elbow?
JULIE: January 1, 1986. That was when Chuck and I first started, uh, dating in 86 or 87.
STONE: And Ashley was the product of that marriage?
JULIE: David and I, yes.
STONE: Why were you concerned about David’s custody of Ashley?
JULIE: When David and I divorced, it was never a question of who was going to retain primary physical custody of Ashley. It was we. There was no argument of that at all. She always stayed with me. And, um, we just had reasonable visitation set up. And he basically got his visitation whenever he asked for it. And, um, he paid child support so it was never any problem. And, um, when he got remarried is when it became a problem.
All of a sudden, he decided he wanted custody of Ashley and did not want to pay child support and, uh, used the history of the Hydrocodone. I went into court several times, um, and I represented myself, as a matter-of-fact, on several occasions, and never lost custody of Ashley. So, we litigated for a long, long time back and forth and back and forth. And, uh, each time we went and the judge did not change or take custody from me more hostility with the family––his family––grew. And it became a war over this child.
STONE: Did abortion bother you for religious reasons?
JULIE: It bothered me very much. I don’t think it bothered me for religious reasons though, more personal.
STONE: You said that Chuck “forced” you to have the abortion.
JULIE: [Julie answered, then changed her answer.] I don’t know why I protect Chuck sometimes, but I do. He did force me to. I just wasn’t tough enough at that time to stand up to him.
STONE: You weren’t strong enough?
JULIE: Well, I’d been married and divorced once. I already had a daughter. Now I’m going to be pregnant and have a child with a man, who wants absolutely nothing to do with the child, wants nothing to do with me if I have this child. And, you know, what’s terrible is, when I sit and I think about it now and, I don’t know what made me stay around, you know. It’s like I can’t, I don’t, you know, when I say this stuff back to you it sounds absolutely crazy.
Yeah. So anyway, I decided to get an abortion. And, we continued to date after that. We dated from ’86, um, ’87, ’88. In ’89, he had asked me to marry him. The house was in the process of being built out in Clermont. And he wanted me to go ahead and take a job out there in Clermont, so I did. I went to work at South Lake Memorial. And the house was supposed to be ready in July, and we’d be married and move in. He decided he wanted four bedrooms and he wanted several children so we started trying, trying to have a child. We would have been married in about a month or so. We just started early and, uh, I got pregnant. And I told him that I was pregnant.
He did the same thing to me the second time that he did the first time. He said, “no, no!” And, uh, this time I was absolutely in shock because there was no birth control used––this was planned. We had the house almost built. We were ready to be married. Finances were absolutely no problem at all. And he did the same thing to me. He said, “if you have this child––you’re on you own!”
STONE: Was it financial leverage?
JULIE: Oh yes, always, yes, that was his, um, that was his thing. A lot of the doctors that talked to me at first, at the very beginning, did mention like, um, did spousal revenge play a part in this?” And I said no. And it was later on when, you know, I think about them asking me that because all I ever said was, “no, it didn’t...” I don’t think that I ever told them that Charley was not the way to get to Chuck. His money was. Because that was, his greatest fear after he married...and my having children, and the amount of money he’d be losing. That was, you see, that would have been the way to hurt Chuck.
STONE: You attempted suicide after the first abortion?
JULIE: Yes, terrible.
STONE: Did you feel that way or did you act?
JULIE: I’m trying to think if that’s when I, uh...that’s when I acted on it. I sure did, yes, I did. I made a very valid attempt at the time. I took a massive dose of Valium and, um, drank at least a fifth of vodka on top of it. And, uh, it was just a fluke that, uh, my dad came up. And he was not supposed to. He wasn’t expected, nobody was. And I was in the hospital for a while. I guess I was unconscious for a while. I didn’t, uh, I wasn’t aware of anything.
STONE: The next pregnancy was Charley?
JULIE: Right. And that’s when Chuck... He pulled the same thing on me again because this time we had already planned the marriage and had the house being built. And I had already taken my job in Clermont. And everything was supposedly going so well. And Charley was planned. And I had always wanted a boy. I always wanted a boy. And, um, I just knew this child was a boy. And, uh, Chuck said, “prepare...you have this child you’re on your own, no marriage, no nothing!” My family was furious. “You can’t have this child! You’re gonna blow this marriage! You’re going to be a single mother with two children now!”
Everybody was against it. And after I had had Ashley my mom took over, that was her “third” child. She moved right in and caused a lot of problems with David and I, more than David and I had. My mother, I know this is skipping around a lot but there’s a lot of... My mother took all the enjoyment out of my pregnancy with Ashley. She made me feel like a “vessel.” So did my in-laws. It had to be a girl for them. There are no girls in their family for a couple of generations. I was no longer the mother of my baby; I was carrying her for all of them.
STONE: Why did your mother attach to Ashley so strongly?
JULIE: She just loved little girls. When I was about twelve, she always had somebody’s little girl she was taking care of full time throughout my high school years. And this was her new little girl she could dress up. And she treated Ashley like a queen. I mean she spoiled her rotten. Did everything for her. She was, I mean, an excellent grandmother. But she really took over. So, when I got pregnant I knew the second time that this was a boy and nobody wanted him. Nobody wanted to have him. And I said to myself basically, “to hell with all of you! I don’t care! This is my baby! And I’m having this child! And he’s mine, not Chuck’s, not mom’s––anybody’s!”
STONE: Were your pregnancies used as leverage against Chuck?
JULIE: No.
STONE: Did you love him?
JULIE: Yes, very, very, very much.
STONE: And that influenced many of your choices?
JULIE: Yeah, I was blindly in love with the man. I would have, I would have done anything that he asked me to do. And I did everything that he asked me to do, except, uh, abort that second pregnancy.
STONE: Are you easy to control?
JULIE: Normally, in my regular dealings I was pretty easy to control. I’ve been, I’ve changed a lot since this has happened. But, um, prior to that, yes, it was my mother always controlling me, um, and basically, my mother controlled me throughout my marriage to David. And controlled Ashley and everything t
hat happened, and then I was with Chuck and it was Chuck controlling me and everything. My mother is still trying to. And so, I was kind of pulled in different directions all the time always conceding to somebody. There never really was a time that I stood up and said, “No, it’s not going to be that way. I’m not going to do this.” And the first time, I guess, I ever really did that was when I got pregnant with Charley. I said, “no I’m not aborting this child for you mother, for you dad, and you Chuck. If you leave – leave. I don’t care––go!” you know, and that’s my threat to my mom. “And I’m having this child with you or without you. And I don’t care. He’s mine. Mom’s not taking him from me. You’re not taking him from me. He’s mine. And I’m already his mom.”
STONE: Did Chuck back down?
JULIE: He backed down. He left me.
STONE: He left you?
JULIE: Yes, he did leave me. Oh, yeah! This is a great story that happened here. Yes, he left me, but still tried to get me to abort Charley. He, uh, said that, “you know, there’s still children down the road that, uh, it’s too soon.”
STONE: How old was he at this time?
JULIE: Thirty-six, he was almost forty. But, uh, he had never been married, or anything, or had any children. Um, he asked me to meet him down on Park Avenue to talk. So, I met him. And he came up with some big story about how he had a venereal disease. And that, uh, I couldn’t have Charley without the risk of exposing him. And, I guess he was just grasping at straws because I was a nurse and I’m certainly not stupid. And I knew that I didn’t have anything, you know. So, he tried, and tried, and tried to talk me out of having Charley. And that’s when I said forget it. My father talked to him, you know, it’s a very, you know, fatherly thing. “You know, you plan to marry the girl. You’re almost forty-years old and, uh...” My father got nowhere with him either. He was determined not... We were not having this child, or he wasn’t having a part of it.
And so, I, uh, had already taken a job out in Clermont. And again, they didn’t want me to have the child since Chuck wasn’t going to marry me. And they didn’t want me to live there. And I said okay. And I had made some good friends at South Lake Memorial. And one of those good friends was, um, involved and worked as a paramedic. And he was at the hospital a lot. And, uh, he helped me get set up in a little apartment out there in Clermont so I could keep my job and be close. And, uh, we were good friends. And he was about forty years old, too. And he said, “The baby should have a name.” And he was just being a good person. He said, “you don’t want to be by yourself out here, and a tiny baby, and Ashley.” And he was always really good with Ashley, and real good to me. And, uh, I was worried about the pregnancy and stuff. And he asked me to marry him. And I said, yeah, okay, you know, I’d be glad for Charley to have a name. We’ll be a family. I wanted good things, you know, for Ashley and, uh, the baby. He was aware of everything that had happened but... I was getting married. Chuck didn’t want me, or Charley, but he didn’t want anyone else to have us either.
STONE: How did Chuck know you married Jim?
JULIE: He found out through... He had worked with an attorney. I’m trying to remember if dad had ever told him. He had been working with an attorney up in Lake County. And I guess they had discussed his possible marriage and stuff several times. And I guess the attorney saw my marriage in the paper and was talking to Chuck on the phone. He’s the one who told Chuck, “by the way Julie got married the other night.” And Chuck got papers drawn up to sue me for the car and custody of Charley, and the right to be present in the delivery room. And I was absolutely––I was floored. And here’s this man who never cared about me or Charlie, or anything, and he has the audacity to file for the custody of an unborn child? And, uh, it was just...
Needless to say my marriage to Jim went, I mean, down hill very quick. After that, Chuck sat outside our apartment all hours of the night and stalked me constantly, and started begging me to come back and leave Jim. He sent me flowers at work. He put up a billboard! We lived in the little town of Clermont. He put up a billboard on Highway 50, this great big huge heart. Um, it said––Chuck loves Julie, Ashley, and February 23––which was due date Charlie! So the whole town, basically, he was telling the whole town this baby was his, Chuck’s––not Jim’s. And, uh, Chuck got to Jim a couple times to try to get him to leave me. I don’t know, no one’s ever really told me exactly what went down but, uh, he did. He, uh, on New Year’s Eve, Jim arranged for me to go to dinner with one of my girlfriends. And we went to dinner.
And when I came back, he had cleaned the place out! He was gone. And at this point, I was due to have Charlie. And it had been confirmed that it was a boy. Um, I did have Charlie in about nine weeks when Jim and I... And, uh, I don’t to this day, I don’t know what made me do it, but I picked up the phone. As soon as I saw the house cleaned out, I knew that Chuck had gone in. And Chuck had helped Jim leave some how. And, um, I dialed the phone to call Chuck and it was like he was waiting for my phone call. He said, “well, I’m having a New Year’s Eve party and why don’t you come over.” And we got married about a week later. Well, two or three weeks later, we got married. And my mother was thrilled again!
STONE: Were you still in love with him?
JULIE: I always loved him but I saw a side of him that was real cold, he scared me. For years, Chuck would ask me, “What’s wrong?” And I always told him, “You make me nervous.” He just blew it off or laughed.
STONE: Was Chuck ever in a rehabilitation program?
JULIE: Chuck was convicted of the DUI in California and was placed on written probation in California. While on probation in California, he was arrested for assault and battery on me. If I had been vindictive in any way I could have reported the DUI to the Lockheed- Martin corporate headquarters and gotten him violated on his probation in California. And I could have reported the domestic violence arrest to Lockheed.
STONE: Did his job cause problems?
JULIE: It’s a combination of things, just like why I did what I did. It’s a combination of many things. Chuck had... His father was a Brigadier General. His mother basically committed suicide. Chuck said she died of depression and a broken heart. He said it was his fault. The autopsy said “adrenal hemorrhage” due to the copious drugs she was taking. She wanted to die. Chuck hurt his father (emotionally) very bad before he died. His father was a millionaire and wrote Chuck out of the will as a result.
STONE: Were Charley, or Ashley abused?
JULIE: Each night when he came home from work, he would check everything inside and out of the house. My tires on the car had to be perfectly straight, no light left on, no fan left on, no toy down... Air-conditioning had to be at a perfect setting. Chuck also had some unnatural love for fire and burning things. He burned himself severely twice in a gasoline fire. The first time he was at West Orange Hospital. The second time was at the burn unit at O.R.M.C. He would stand there staring at it for hours burning. When he wasn’t burning things outside, he was burning all of our garbage in the family room fireplace – plastic milk cartons, everything. It would be packed, and he refused to put the screen in front of the fireplace. Pieces of it on fire would fly out on the carpeting. It burned the carpet up. I was scared to let the kids in there so I would take them out of the house. It was like an inferno. Ashley wouldn’t go near it, but I always worried about Charley.
STONE: How old was Charley?
JULIE: He was younger. You see, Ashley was older and she knew Chuck was never going to touch her. But what would come out of his mouth was just as damaging. And, uh, she was very sensitive. She was very afraid. So, no, he never physically abused them. He spanked Charley, uh, one time, very, very, very bad––very hard. And, uh, I was absolutely furious. I had to pull him off of Charley. And, uh, Chuck and I got into a horrible argument that night, terrible.
He called the police once again complaining of domestic violence which I had now “touched” Chuck trying to get him off of Charlie. Charley’s backside was bruised
and I was furious. And, um, I had gone downstairs, and I had a drink. That was during the time that I drank. And, um, I went downstairs and I had a drink, which was my biggest, biggest, biggest mistake. And I think it was shortly thereafter that I stopped. And I think that’s the main reason why I did stop.
I put Charley to bed after sitting with him for half the night, went downstairs, and had a drink. Chuck and I got into a terrible argument. But I never got up out of the chair. I just stayed there. He went outside in the garage and the next thing I knew he had called the police. And the police came and he talked to them outside, and he came in. And they said, “We have a report of domestic violence.” And, uh, I said, “no, no, there was no domestic violence.”
I mean we had a very heated argument and I was afraid to tell them because, um, I didn’t know if HRS would step in or something, cause Charley, he had marks on him. And I was furious, I mean, I really was. And, um, Chuck took Charley to mother’s house that night and dropped him off. And, uh, that is why I stopped the drinking because when I talked to the police officers, um, I had probably had one or two drinks. But they smelled that alcohol and that was it, you know, that was, that was it. They could smell that alcohol and I was, basically, I was hysterical.
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