STONE: What would you say to someone who is contemplating the same action now that you took then?
JULIE: A lot of things, I guess, um, it’s like I don’t, I don’t even know where to begin. The drugs? I, I never would have thought it could have such a tragic, I never dreamed it could get so out of control, so many lives could be ruined. You have to get clean, you have to get clean because, you know, people say “well, you don’t, you don’t get clean until you hit rock bottom, hit your bottom.” Everybody’s got their own personal bottoms. Well, I thought I hit that, you know, when my husband and I separated. I wasn’t able to return to nursing any more, you know. I was litigating in court all the time over Ashley. And I thought, “this is my bottom, you know, it can’t get any worse for me” but, uh, I lost what I love most. And if I had got clean, this would not have happened.
If I had stayed clean, Chuck would not have had that kind of leverage over me. If the chance of losing Charley like that, then I could have, I would have thought clearly. I would have been able to know every time he hit me, I would have thought, I would have gotten that documentation. I would have called the police. I would have, would have set myself up to where I wouldn’t have been put in this kind of a position. Instead I, I was drowning myself in the drugs, and each time something happened I’d use a little more drugs, instead of taking care of the problem. When there was the domestic violence, I should have stayed, you know, clean, didn’t drink, nothing, just pick up the phone, call the police and I’d have got the documentation. I would have, if I had that, and all my ducks in a row like that, things would have worked very differently, I think. Got to consider the end. And I didn’t...
STONE: Is my visit going to affect you?
JULIE: I don’t know.
STONE: Maybe this can fill a hole, and maybe fix something. Maybe we can stop at least one life from being lost this way again. Maybe, our own redemption, yours and mine, will come out of this.
JULIE: Me too, I hope there’s something. I would hate to think that we’ve gone through all this for nothing.
STONE: There are some records in Tavares at the courthouse about domestic issues?
JULIE: Yes. Chuck was arrested for domestic violence. That was the only domestic violence... It was the only time the police actually got called on Chuck that they did something. And that was because I didn’t call, somebody else called the police. And, um, they told me it doesn’t matter if you prosecute or not, the state’s going to pick up the charges. And, um, he had a lot of alcohol related accidents. He was burned in gasoline fires twice because of alcohol.
He was very, very careless which also was a reason I was worried about Charley being with him. He was hospitalized in the burn unit twice doing insane things. He started fires in the house, lots of things that... There are reasons why I left. I was scared to death for Charley...because major, major things happened. Crazy things that he did, you know. Mark’s aware of all of them. Uh, that’s why I’m surprised you don’t have Gongora’s report, report, because a lot of this stuff is in those reports.
STONE: Exhausted?
JULIE: I’m pretty tired.
STONE: It’s been a very long, hard day.
[Second Interview––July 14, 1999]
STONE: I spoke with Mr. O’Mara. He said that you weren’t doing so well.
JULIE: I had gotten a random dorm change. And I have been put in the undisputed worst dormitory on the compound, and it’s nuts. I’m used to it now; I’ve gotten acclimated. But I’m not a real flexible-type person. I don’t like change like that and it really, really floored me. I was a little depressed for like a couple of weeks.
[All of the inmates since my last visit were being relocated to other state facilities.]
JULIE: Oh, I want to go. It’s not an open dorm situation. It’s a lot, a lot different. Plus, there’ll be, um, I believe I’ll be in “close custody” which is what I want to be in, close custody.
STONE: What is “close custody”?
JULIE: Um, maximum security. A majority of “close custody” inmates are long-timers––lifers. They are the ones who have made that one huge mistake, and had never been in trouble before, and probably, if given a chance would never again, compared to the crack addicts, prostitutes, and petty thieves that continually return to prison. We see them leave everyday, and we see them return. They are the reasons (some of them) why it is nearly impossible to get released to a work release program, and why there is no parole. Long- timers don’t want to live with these people because they conduct themselves in here the same way they did out there––lying, stealing, conning, and fighting.
STONE: Have you spoken with your mother recently?
JULIE: My mother, um, we got in a big argument regarding some things that were Charley’s. My mother’s failing medically. She’s doing very badly. And, um, there’s a couple things that I want her to box up and, um, put somewhere else so that when, and if something does happen to her... I will leave here some day, and I want those, and, um, she just, she refused, just refused. I don’t, I don’t know, sometimes there’s just no talking to her. I’m going to talk to her Sunday when she comes. I’d feel a lot better, you know, if I could get those things secured. It’s a real helpless feeling being in here and something that simple, you can’t, you know, you don’t have control over anything out there any more.
STONE: Do the other inmates know why you’re here, and do they express an opinion, or exchange––
JULIE: No, um, but the people that usually express or exchange are the ones that are in for drugs or stuff like that. Most people that are here for a long time like I am––we don’t talk about our cases. I think there is very few people in the compound that don’t know why I’m here. When I hit the compound that was, you know, the big, the big story, and the big thing, you know. And unfortunately, you know, we have our own grapevine here so the stories went from, you know, crazy to absolutely outrageous. But, um, basically, the gist was accurate, you know, why I was here.
STONE: How do they treat you?
JULIE: What I found is they treat me the way I treat them, and, you know, I treat everybody well. They also know that I do go out of my way to try and help. I help a lot of people. And, um, actually they treat me very, very well. I’ve been treated well by the inmates. Now if I get, if I were to get into an argument, or a big argument with one of them, the first thing out of their mouth will be “you killed your child”, you know, that’s how that will come out, otherwise, no, I would never hear about it.
STONE: How do inmates feel about you because it had to do with a child?
JULIE: It does. When I first came in, um, it wasn’t until, you know, I’ve been here for a while now, and people have had a chance to get to know me. A lot of them have kind of, I mean, on their own... I guess that rumors have kind of spread because there’s nobody on the compound that I have ever talked to or told anything about it. But they’ve all kind of, I think, surmised that something happened, you know, something was going on. It wasn’t just your typical, you know, it wasn’t done out of like a meanness-type of thing. I think they kind of surmised that them selves just by the way I am here, and deal with them. So, everything just kind of worked itself out, and everybody seems to be ok with me.
STONE: Have you spoken with Ashley?
JULIE: I talked to her last month. We talked for about fifteen, twenty minutes. We’re supposed to be able to write whenever we want to, but uh, her father’s kind of run interference with that. But Ashley’s almost fifteen years old and, you know, she has some rights. Because I wasn’t, uh, sentenced under Florida Statute, you know, 944 with, um, any of the child-related charges. I’m sentenced, you know, for second-degree murder. So those laws don’t apply.
STONE: How’s Ashley responding to you?
JULIE: She’s doing real well; she’s doing real well. She, ah, she misses me very, very badly. She wants to come and visit. Her father is furious that she wants anything to do with me at all. Ah, there have been reper
cussions that, you know, she has had to suffer because of her wanting to maintain a relationship with me. But we have been writing and, um, talking on the phone.
STONE: Are you restricted in what you can say to her?
JULIE: I guess what they don’t understand is, you know, they say, “well, we need to listen to all of your phone calls to make sure the content is appropriate.” And I understand that, but it’s been since 1996 and if they think, I mean, what do they think? In my fifteen-minute phone call to her, I’m going to discuss, you know, why I’m here? We don’t touch on those things. But that will happen, down the road when she can come, and she can see me, and I can sit down with her. That’s not something that’s going to happen over a phone, or in a letter.
STONE: Was there any resentment on your part toward Ashley because your mother gave her so much attention?
JULIE: No, there wasn’t any resentment. I went through a period when Ashley was fairly young of, like I said, when I first had Ashley, my mother, I mean, really took over. I went back to work when she was six weeks old. My mother wanted her constantly. David and I were young. We went out and did our things, played golf. We were everywhere. Ashley stayed with mom all the time. She came home, you know, when we were done doing our things. And it got to where, and naturally, but I was young and didn’t think about stuff like that––Ashley wanted to be with my mother. She didn’t want to be with me. Why would she want to be with me, you know? I wasn’t there for her. But I was a young kid.
It was like I couldn’t understand it. It was like, “I’m your mother. You should want to be with me!” Now this is when Ashley was very young, like two or three. She cried for grandma...she always wanted grandma. And so that would make me take her back over to mom’s more, and it was just kind of a snowball effect where my mother really became a mother to Ashley. But there wasn’t any real resentment, I think, it was just, I just couldn’t understand, you know. And it wasn’t until, I guess, I got older and, uh, I understood very well. My mother was the one that was there for her, you know, she was actually the mother for Ashley. But no, I wasn’t resentful for any attention she got from my mom. I didn’t want that attention from my mother––not at all. No, I didn’t harbor any resentment for Ashley, no, because I felt my mother was doing a great job with her. And she was. There was nothing I could say, you know, against my mom. She did everything for Ashley.
It’s just that, what happened was after Ashley spent so many years you know, three, four years with my mother and my dad... When I moved out to Clermont, and I was going to marry Chuck and, uh, start a family out there, my mother and father, basically, my mother were like, “well you’re not taking this child away from us. You’ve let us care for her for years now – you can’t do that!” So then, they started putting this terrible guilt trip on me. Ashley was still at a young age where she wanted to be with grandma. So, she would make me feel guilty if I took her away. My mom would cry when I came to pick her up. It was real bad, and I gave in. I conceded a lot. So, Ashley stayed with my mom and dad a lot of the time. That’s, and it just, it was an ongoing thing. It just progressively got worse.
Now Ashley, as she got older, wanted to spend more time with me. It was different then. She changed a lot and wanted to spend a lot more time with me, and she did. But, um, when I got pregnant with Charley and Ashley was still very much my mother’s, you know, and it was like I couldn’t get her back without making Ashley unhappy, my mother unhappy, my dad unhappy. I mean it was terrible. So when I had Charley, I told myself, you know, from the start “we’re not repeating this again, it was a mistake. I did it with Ashley. I don’t know how to rectify it without hurting everybody, making them all miserable, but this is my child! And then come to find out Chuck didn’t want him; my family didn’t want him...so he was mine. And I wasn’t going to let, you know, anybody change their mind later on and step in and decide, you know, they’re going to take him in like they did Ashley. I wasn’t willing to, to give him up like that.
Ashley may have harbored some resentment although she never said so. I think, she may have felt that I loved Charley more. This isn’t true. I loved Ashley with all my heart, but they both had such different personalities and needs. Charley always wanted to be with me no matter what I was doing. He wanted to be hugged and kissed, and cuddled all the time by me. Ashley was more reserved and never seemed to want to. As I look back now, I think Ashley had those same needs, she just didn’t know how to go about it. And I always assumed she didn’t want that constant attention. I felt she wanted it from mom and dad, but not me. I feel guilty about it now. I have a need to make it up to her but it’s too late. That’s hard to live with.
STONE: You said last time that Chuck’s parents had a stormy relationship.
JULIE: Yes, very. They went through a horrible, terrible, terrible divorce, very nasty––very costly. It was, um, a tough relationship.
STONE: Do you think Chuck followed the same path?
JULIE: Well, you know, they say history repeats itself and, um, it did. At least in this particular case it did.
STONE: Do you think that our parents influence us so much that we repeat their actions?
JULIE: I think it will either make you repeat them or you completely rebel from it.
STONE: Because your mother obsessed over Ashley and you obsessed over Charley.
JULIE: But I obsessed over him in a different way and for different reasons, you know. Ashley was like her little “doll.” When I was in my teens and was not married, my mother always had a little girl in the house that she took care of. She took care of somebody’s little child always. So, she was always obsessed with little girls and having to dress them up, and stuff like that. She wasn’t obsessed over the child being hers, um, or afraid that they would be hurt, or abused, or anything like that. But maybe that obsession somehow, you know...I think because of what I went through and, um, watching with my brother because that’s very hard to be... And nowadays it’s a crime to commit any kind of domestic violence, or any kind of abuse in front of a child. And I witnessed that for years, and it was devastating to watch the person you loved most, and he was, just get beaten down and degraded––humiliated.
STONE: Did you ever fear abusing Charley like your mother abused John?
JULIE: No. See that’s, that’s why I think, um, I was saying it either makes you either repeat what your parents have done, or you like rebel from it. Neither one of my children have ever been touched by me. I’ve never spanked them.
STONE: Did you spend too much time with Charley? Was he allowed to be a little boy?
JULIE: He played his baseball and, uh, yeah, he skated, and everything. I wasn’t with him like all the time then. He had his little friends and he hung around a lot of, um, he was always very mature, and some of those little neighborhood boys that were several years older would come over. And he was allowed to be a little boy and he, he did his things. But we had our things that we enjoyed doing together.
STONE: Charley wanted to go away?
JULIE: Yeah, he always wanted to go to the beach.
STONE: Was his desire to leave a catalyst for what happened?
JULIE: I don’t, I don’t know if it was. Charley always, Charley always wanted to go away. He wanted, he wanted to go away. He wanted to live at the ocean with me. He didn’t want to live with grandma and grandpa anymore. He didn’t want to live with his father. As a matter-of-fact, I had some problems with the visitation because Charley was acting up in class and, um, it came out that he talked with one of his teachers, and he was worried about going over to Chuck’s house on several occasions. And he was real afraid he would be left there for his birthday. Charley always wanted to go away––the two of us. There were things that he enjoyed doing, just the two of us. He had to have his other things, his friends, and his baseball, and karate and stuff like that. Well, yeah, he always wanted to go away, and my thing to him, I’d always say, “well, someday, Charley, someday.”
STONE: What would Ch
arley say to you about all this?
JULIE: What, um, he would say, and what I would want him to say are probably two different things. He’d, he wouldn’t want me to be with him until the time was right. He wouldn’t want me to leave Ashley.
STONE: Would he be upset with what you did?
JULIE: If Charley knew nothing else, he knew I loved him no matter what he did, and he knew I would never hurt him. No, I don’t think, um, he wouldn’t, he wouldn’t be upset with me. I think that -
STONE: He’d understand?
JULIE: I think he would understand, yes.
STONE: Some people believe abortion is the killing of an unborn child. If that was the case for you did that make what you did November 6 somewhat acceptable?
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