Through a Mother's Eyes

by Cary Allen Stone

  STONE: You thought the drinking was going to be grounds for HRS to take Charley?

  JULIE: Right. And, uh, well not for Charley, what had happened to Charley, but his calls and reports of domestic violence––that I had alcohol on me. I was, I’d have to be the guilty one. So, I said no, you know, no more. And that’s when I stopped. I said no more drinking. Because I was tired of it, you know, I mean he didn’t call from the house. He and I had never had a “fight-fight.” There were times when he got me down and he thought, but as far as me actually even getting to hit him back or any thing, that never happened. And, uh, when you drink, or they know that you’re drinking, you have no way of defending yourself to the officers. And I understood that and that’s when I stopped.

  But Chuck took Charley to mother’s house, and mom immediately called me on the phone and said what happened to that boy? And, uh, I told her. And I said the police smelled alcohol on my breath and told me I couldn’t leave the house. So I said, “I was going to wait and first thing in the morning I’ll drive in.” So I did. I went back to moms. And Charley’s, um, bottom was bruised. I think Chuck spoke of that in his deposition that he had spanked him real hard one time. But that’s the only time that he has ever, ever touched Charlie.

  STONE: The note you left that night said you knew things about Chuck that no body knew.

  JULIE: No. I can’t do that. I can’t do that.

  STONE: How did you come to be represented by Mr. O’Mara?

  JULIE: The public defender saw me just for a few minutes, and I just kind of blew him off and went back. And then Mark came and wanted to see me, and I refused to see him a couple of times until finally he, you know, was very persistent. So, I went out and saw him. And I told him, you know, “Look, I don’t have a penny to hire you. I’m not hiring an attorney for this anyway. I’m going to just plead guilty and whatever they do, they do.” And, uh, he said, “You can’t do that!” I didn’t have the money. I wasn’t going to hire anybody. And uh, he said, “Well, I’ll talk to Chuck.” And I said, “no, you can’t do that, you know, that’s, um, that’s out of line it’s, it’s, you know, you can’t do that. You can’t go to my husband and ask him to be my defense counselor after this. I mean, I just, I couldn’t, you know, see him doing that. So I told him, “I said don’t, you know, don’t do that.” And he said, “well, then let me do this, I want to do it and, um, I’ll do it without a penny.” And I said, “Whatever you do, you do on your own, you know.” I said, “I don’t care what happens. So I left and, uh, then Mark, you know, kept seeing me, kept coming back and seeing me.

  And it wasn’t for months down the road that I realized and found out that he had approached Chuck after he went home and, Chuck hired him, you know, immediately and, uh, which surprised me. And, I just, just didn’t happen to expect it. I just wanted to go away, you know, I wanted, I didn’t want anything, I mean nothing!

  STONE: Was Chuck different toward you that day?

  JULIE: What day? November 7? I did, hadn’t seen him that day. No, I didn’t see Chuck for, oh, I saw Chuck, no, as a matter-of-fact, no I didn’t see Chuck for a while. Chuck went to court and got an order to have me released to go to a private viewing. Chuck was there that day and they wouldn’t, um, let him come out and see him for security reasons. But I didn’t see Chuck for a while. I don’t think I saw him for a while after that. I talked to him on the phone probably...that seems like probably a couple months.

  STONE: How was he when you finally did see him?

  JULIE: He was never, um, since this, he has never shown me any anger. Um, I’ve never, it’s, uh, I’ve never seen that side of him.

  STONE: Did he love Charley?

  JULIE: I think he loved him in his own way, but Chuck’s loved, um, several people and he’s hurt them all very badly––his mother, and his father, and his sister, and me.

  STONE: Has he changed at all since that night?

  JULIE: Well, I don’t know, I don’t know if, um... You know, my parents, I would talk to them on the phone and they’d say Chuck’s over here all the time. And he’s crying. And he doesn’t blame you. And, and, he’s reading out of the Bible all of the time. And I, you know I’ve known this man for years, and I said, that it won’t last, it won’t last. It’s either grief, or a combination of grief and some guilt, and bearing some responsibility, and it; it’s a combination of things. But that’s not the Chuck I know. I’ve known him for years.” And, um, so I don’t know exactly, I don’t, I don’t know exactly... He loved Charley. I think that Chuck loved all of his possessions, his “things” because they were, they were all things to him––all were his, everything was his. And I think he looked at Charley as that or, I felt that he felt that way about Charley too.

  STONE: Your saying that he saw Charley as a “possession”?

  JULIE: Yeah. “He’s mine.” Didn’t want Charley to even talk to him, or do anything. He was “his,"...he was his. It’s the way he was with us. He did start going to some baseball games of Charley’s. And he did, and we split for good and got a visitation arrangement set up. He had all this visitation set up but he never utilized any of it, he never utilized. He only saw him like 24 hours, uh, every couple weeks. Actually, per our visitation, you know, order, he could have seen him a lot more frequently. He could have been with him a lot more.

  STONE: How do you get along with Chuck now?

  JULIE: He visits. We get along. It’s very weird, he, uh, it’s very hard for me to see him. We get along, and he’s never blamed me, or been harsh, or angry, or anything with me at all.

  STONE: Does he have contact with your mother at all?

  JULIE: He’s helped her. Yeah, he’s helped her out a lot, especially when dad died. And cause my brother doesn’t call, or come home at all. So, when she lost me, she lost Charley. Ashley she gets to see once in a while. So, my mother has lost everyone and, uh, so Chuck’s went back to her and stuff.

  STONE: What do you talk about when he visits?

  JULIE: He thought that I would change my mind and want to go back to court to set aside my plea. And, uh, I have all of those grounds. He acts to me like he has a genuine interest and genuinely wanted me to go back to court. So right now, I’m not the same person that I was, so I take what Chuck says with a grain of salt. I don’t care whether he wants me to go, or if he doesn’t want me to go. I don’t care.

  STONE: You’ve taken control of your life?

  JULIE: Yes.

  STONE: What would be the advantage to you changing the plea?

  JULIE: And going back to court? Um, the only advantage would be... The truth is, and I think Chuck said a lot when he was at my plea hearing that day and he felt that twenty-five years was too much. And I think that he thinks that, yes, I should be punished, and yes, I should be incarcerated, but not for twenty-five years. I think he thinks that, um, a reduction of sentence would be more appropriate.

  STONE: If you got a reduction in sentence time, and released, would you want to re-unite with him?

  JULIE: We can never do that. I would never do that, ever. We’ve never discussed anything like that! But, um, I certainly, I would hope not, that he, I would never do that, something like that... Chuck has always seen somebody. Always.

  STONE: Always?

  JULIE: Yeah, he’s always had many “good friends”––women, yes. So, I’m sure he is seeing somebody. Quite frankly, I’m surprised that he hasn’t filed for divorce yet. And I would have thought that by now, I mean, I’ve been waiting for it actually so I’m surprised that he hasn’t. I don’t know why he hasn’t. I’m not, I don’t understand that unless it just...

  STONE: How does Chuck look through your eyes?

  JULIE: He’s a different kind of guy. He has some very good qualities. He’s an aggressive and dangerous person... If I had had a husband with no money, things would have been different. But with all his money, there would have been nowhere I could hide without him finding me. He could afford the best counselor. He could, and would, pay to ha
ve anything done. I was physically afraid of him...and his money.

  STONE: I call 1996 your “meltdown” year. Everything hit you at one time. Did you ever feel that there was somebody you could reach out to?

  JULIE: Now, you see my dad, um, once we were a little older, John and I were older and in our late teens, my father was... My father and I became very, very close. And he was, he was kind of my ace in the hole––my hero. He just, he supported me in everything except when I got pregnant with Charley. Other than that he was, he was always there for me.

  And, um, the problem with the Hydrocodone, he was, he was always there. He was always the home that I could go to. But after so many years of problems with Chuck, they wanted me to divorce Chuck. They wanted me to divorce him. And I filed for divorce twice but never went through with it. I guess my father just got to the end of his rope, and he was tired of it. He was, um, tired of the problems associated with Chuck and Julie’s relationship and––

  STONE: Saturated?

  JULIE: Yeah. He was, well...

  STONE: You didn’t go to mom?

  JULIE: No. Mom is a very determined person but she’s, um, she can’t withstand any kind of pressure. She’s not, um; she’s a very, very nervous person. She’s, uh, not very rational and, uh, my mother is and has been basically throughout my marriage with Chuck, uh, in denial of how bad things really were...the fact that I’m incarcerated, and the reason I’m incarcerated. My mother blocks things out, and she’s just not, uh, no, she certainly is not somebody you’d ever go to with a problem. She just can’t handle it. You’d have to suffer.

  STONE: No friends you could go to?

  JULIE: Um, no, uh, mainly because what I, what I did is I worked continuously. And when I wasn’t working, uh, I was with Charlie. That was especially that last year that was it, especially when you’re using drugs. Some people, I guess, tend to use drugs and get high with friends. Other people, like me, where it wasn’t a get “high-feel-good” situation. It was a maintenance situation. I became very withdrawn. I stayed away from people, very private, no body ever knew. I didn’t have one friend, anybody I worked with, no body that knew. I was friendly to everyone, but close to no one.

  STONE: Did you ever consider talking to a minister?

  JULIE: No.

  STONE: Did any one at this time recognize the situation?

  JULIE: A lot of people thought I was sick. I was under a tremendous amount of stress and they knew that I was having problems with Chuck. So I guess, you know, all my weight loss and. When I look back, I think, you know, perhaps my moods and behavior was a little erratic. I just don’t think anybody ever associated that with drug use, or I was stressed, or a combination of...

  STONE: You wouldn’t discuss it?

  JULIE: No, no. I wish that I could, and maybe some people would be able to, but I’ve always been a very, very private person. And I guess that was the way I was raised. It was like, you know, anything that happens in the home––you keep it in the home, you don’t ever take out. And, um, all the stuff that went on with my brother, you know, my God, nobody would ever say a word about. And since my brother turned 15, and that stopped, nobody has ever mentioned it including my brother. He’s never discussed it with me.

  Mark and the psychiatrists wanted to talk about it and John was like no! My whole family has always been like that. You push things under the carpet and they stay there. And I guess that’s because I was using drugs, and I was having so many problems. I don’t think that if somebody had come to me that I would have.

  STONE: Before checking into that hotel, did you plan to take Charley’s life?

  JULIE: What happened was, uh, first of all, when I had Charley I told you, you know, how I felt about Chuck. I considered him “mine,” and I would always want him. But I realize now, I did not realize then, that it’s, it’s normal for mother to be, you know, overprotective and stuff like that. But I was excessively so. By the time I had Charley, I wanted to protect him from anything and everything.

  I remember one time I was stuck in traffic and was about ten minutes late picking Charley up from school. And one of the teachers let Charley ride home with a neighbor. But when I came to get him nobody knew where he was. That one teacher wasn’t out there. I was in a blind panic, became hysterical, crying––screaming. I was running all over the school, unauthorized. I became physically sick, and he had only been gone ten minutes. I couldn’t see that there was probably a logical explanation. I could only think “my God, I’ve lost him!”

  Another time, Charley was walking home from school with Ashley and some friends. And Charley saw me driving up the road, Ranger Blvd., where all the high school kids speed. When he saw me, he ran out in the road without looking. Everyone was screaming at him and couldn’t get him to stop. I saw a green Jeep Cherokee flying right towards him. Neither of them were stopping. I never stopped the car. I opened the door and ran out in front of the Jeep. It came to a screeching halt not three feet from us. My only thought was “I can’t get to him––so I’m going too.”

  And, I could not, I mean it, I realize now and I didn’t realize it then but, um, I realize now that it was to a point where I wasn’t allowing Charley to... It’s like I wouldn’t let his sister make fun of him at all. And if he was left out, like a fun Friday at school because of bad behavior or something, you know, I was up there at the teacher, you know, having an absolute fit that she would single him out. And, uh, he had a problem saying his “c-h’s” so he couldn’t say his name well. He’d use “f” and he’d say “Farley.” And people would laugh and I would just have a fit. And it’s like I never realized, “Julie, he’s not the one that’s hurting from this––you are.” You know, I hurt if they made fun of him. He was okay, but I couldn’t see it like that. I kept thinking again, “that hurts!”

  STONE: Did Charley complain about it?

  JULIE: He wouldn’t complain about it. It was me that kept seeing him, you know, it was like, “no, you can’t make fun of Charley...” I was way overprotective of him, and he was with me all the time.

  STONE: Referencing the prescription fraud, why did you think you would get ten years?

  JULIE: Yeah, and everybody kept coming to me after I was, after what happened, it’s like, “where’d you get this ten years from?” They told me I was going to be “habitualized,” you know, I was going to prison for habitual and no gain time or nothing, I mean, I would go away for ten years. And, so I had the drug problem and I had the ten years coming I figured and, uh, Chuck filed for divorce and, uh, for custody of Charley. And I was in a blind panic, um, I couldn’t see anything except me having to leave Charley, and him staying with Chuck. And I kept thinking he’s, you know, he’s going to be abused without me. I mean Chuck has hurt everybody he’s ever loved.

  And, um, you know, there was some crazy accidents that happened, too, involved with his drinking and blackouts, and boating, and with Charley. I had to jump out of the boat with Charley and, uh, I did call the police that time. Chuck wouldn’t stop the boat and, uh, he said he was in a blackout. I’m hoping he was in a blackout, he wasn’t you know, coherent at the time, he was definitely drunk.

  The boat was, um, speeding around real, real fast. Ashley was screaming and crying. And I was trying to get him to stop the boat. And I was hanging onto Charley who was a little baby, a little guy. And, um, Chuck wouldn’t let me stop the boat. And then it started again, and I was in an emergency! And Charley didn’t have a life vest in the boat. So, I jumped with Charley out of the boat because he was zipping underneath the bridges, the concrete. And, uh, I jumped out. I just swam to shore with Charley and he was trailing behind. It was a real bad, bad situation. And, uh, all these things kept coming back. All I kept thinking was, “how can I, how can I, how can I leave Charley.” I couldn’t do that.

  STONE: You went to the hotel with a purpose?

  JULIE: When I thought I was caught this last time, I was thinking, and I know it sounds crazy, at least it does now, but I though
t, he’ll die without me and I’ll die without him. It was the weekend before November 7 that I thought about it. It wasn’t something that was planned out for a long time or anything like that. It was, um, from the time I realized that I was at the end of my rope with the Hydrocodone and, um, I was going to get caught.

  STONE: So you were thinking about it when you and Charley checked into the hotel?

  JULIE: Yeah, it was in my mind then. Checked-in on, in fact, I went and picked Charley up from school on the way and, um, we went and played, and went to the park, and went out to dinner, take-out, and watched TV, and, um, bought him a couple of new books, and waited. We hung out in the bookstore. I bought, he likes to––

  STONE: He liked dinosaurs?

  JULIE: Yes! Yes! He was aware of all that and, um, he loved books. And I did, too. We lived for it. So, we went and got some books, and stayed up late. We did all the things we wanted to do. And it seemed that the very next day, we went out and––We then played all day.

  STONE: Did he ever sense what was going to happen?

  JULIE: No.

  STONE: Was he happy?