dedication
For my Mother and my Grandmother
who never let me feel an ounce of pain.
contents
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Acknowledgments
Back Ad
About the Author
Credits
Copyright
About the Publisher
chapter one
Excerpt from Babies Killing Babies:
Profiles of Preteen and Teen Murderers
by Jane E. Woods (pg. 10)
Some children are just born bad, plain and simple. These are the children that don’t live up to the statistics. One cannot blame their surroundings or upbringings for their behavior. It’s not a scientifically proven inheritable trait. These children are sociological phenomena.
This type of child is perfectly depicted in the classic 1950s film The Bad Seed, based on the novel by William March. It is the story of an eight-year-old girl, sweet and seemingly innocent, the prize of her picture-perfect family, who her mother suspects is a murderer. The adorable Rhoda, a blue-eyed, blond-haired princess, skips around the film in pigtails and baby doll dresses, killing anyone who won’t let her have her way.
The film was horrific for its time, a villain played by a young girl, appearing as innocent as any other. People couldn’t conceive of a child being capable of murder. Even in present day, the act is unfathomable.
This is how Mary B. Addison became a household name. Mary is Rhoda’s story, personified, begging the question: was there something that made her snap, or was the evil dormant all along?
A fly got in the house on Monday. It’s Sunday and he’s still around, bouncing from room to room like he’s the family pet. I never had a pet before. They don’t let convicted murderers have pets in the group home.
I named him Herbert. He’s a baby fly, not one of those noisy horseflies, so no one notices him until he zooms in front of your face and lands near your orange juice. I’m surprised in a houseful of delinquents, no one has killed him yet. I guess he has survival skills, like me. Keeps a low profile, never begging for unnecessary attention. Just like me, he wants to live a quiet life, nibble on some scraps, and be left alone. But just like me, someone is always coming up behind him, shooing him away with the back of a hand. I feel for Herbert. Being a chronic unwanted guest can really suck.
At night, Herbert sleeps on top of the crooked molding that frames my closet, home to the few items of clothing I own. Three pairs of jeans, one pair of black pants, five summer shirts, five winter shirts, one sweater, and a hoodie. No jewelry. Just one of those ankle bracelets given by the state so they can follow me around like the sun.
“Mary! Mary! What in the hell are you doing? Get down here now!”
That’s Ms. Stein, my . . . well, I don’t know what you’d call her, and hopefully you’ll never need to. I climb off the top bunk and Herbert wakes, following me into the bathroom. I’m the youngest, so of course I get the top bunk. That’s the rules of the game. In one month I’ll be sixteen. I wonder if they’ll do anything to celebrate. That’s what you’re supposed to do, right? Celebrate birthdays, especially milestones like sixteen. I was still in baby jail on my last milestone, my thirteenth birthday. They didn’t throw me a party then either. My birthday gift, a black eye and a bruised rib from Shantell in the cafeteria, just for breathing in her direction. That chick was mad crazy, but I’m the one with words like “rage tendencies” all over my file.
Anyways, I’ve been in this home of seven girls for the past three months and not one birthday has ever been mentioned. Guess birthdays don’t mean nothing in a group home. I mean, it kind of makes sense. Hard to celebrate the day you were born when everybody seems to wish you were never born at all. Especially after you come into this world and fuck it all up.
I can name several people who wish I was never born.
Some chocolate cake and ice cream, maybe even some balloons would be cool. But that’s what the stupid girl I used to be wishes for. I keep reminding myself she’s dead. Just like Alyssa.
“Mary! Mary! Where the hell are you?”
The showerhead is a slow drizzling rain cloud. I hate showers. In baby jail, I only got to take one five-minute shower every other day, the water like a fire hose, whipping my skin like towel snaps. I never took showers before, always baths, playing in bubbles made from lemon dish soap in white porcelain tubs.
“Mary! Goddammit!”
I swear that woman can drown out water. Herbert buzzes around my wet hair, drawn to the gel that helps slick my brown ’fro back into a curly ponytail. Wish I was a fly. Like be a real fly on the wall, staring with kaleidoscope eyes at particles floating in the air, trash blowing in the wind, singling out snowflakes and raindrops. I do that now anyways. I can spend hours entertained by my own fascination of nothingness. It’s a trick I learned in the crazy house, to look like I was stone-cold dead to the world so they would stop asking me so many damn questions.
But I can’t be a fly, not today. I have to prepare. Be on high alert and focused. Because in a few hours, the most dangerous, most diabolical, most conniving woman in the world is visiting me:
My mother.
Transcript from the December 12th Interview with Mary B. Addison, Age 9
Detective: Hi, Mary. My name is Jose. I’m a detective.
Mary: Hi.
Detective: Now, don’t be afraid. Your mom said it was okay for us to talk to you. Can I get you anything? You hungry? Would you like something to eat? What about a cheeseburger?
Mary: Uhhh . . . cheeseburger.
Detective: Okay! Great, I love cheeseburgers too. Now, don’t be scared. Just want to ask you a couple of questions about what happened last night. You’ll be really helping us out.
Mary: Okay.
Detective: Great! So now, Mary, how old are you?
Mary: Nine.
Detective: Nine! Wow, such a big girl. Do you know how old Alyssa was?
Mary: Momma said she was three months old.
Detective: That’s right. She was a very tiny baby. What did you do when you helped your mommy take care of her?
Mary: Umm . . . I fed her and burped her . . . and stuff.
Detective: Okay, so now, Mary, can you tell me what happened last night?
Mary: I don’t know.
Detective: Your mommy said you were alone in the room with Alyssa. That she was sleeping in the room with you.
Mary: Ummm . . . I don’t know.
Detective: You sure? Your mommy said she was crying.
Mary: She wouldn’t stop crying . . . I couldn’t sleep.
Detective: Did you try to make her stop crying?
Mary: I don’t remember.
I’m on kitchen duty today. That means I have to scrub and wash until Ms. Stein can see her fat white face in every pot and pan. Ms. Stein doesn’t know how to clean but she sure knows how to criticize.
“Mary, does this look clean to your dumb ass? Clean it again!”
It took the state six long years to realize I wasn’t a threat to society before they ripped me out of baby jail and put me with Ms. Stein. From one prison to another, that’s all it was. Understand, there’s a big difference between baby jail and juvie, where the rest of the gir
ls in the house come from. Juvie is for badass kids who do stuff like rob bodegas, steal cars, maybe stupidly try to kill someone. Baby jail is for kids who’ve done way worse, like me.
Anyways, some social worker dropped me off and said, “This is Ms. Stein,” and left right before I met the real Ms. Stein. Most of my life, no one has bothered to explain anything to me. It’s been one “’cause I said so” scenario after another. I stopped asking questions and in six years I have not run into one adult who would do me the common courtesy of explaining why something is happening to me. I guess killers don’t deserve respect, so I’ve stopped expecting it.
Ms. Stein limps into the kitchen, her bowlegs fat and swollen. You’d think someone would change their diet after they reach over two hundred pounds. But not Ms. Stein. She still eats an entire box of Entenmann’s crumb topped donuts a day.
“Mary! You move as slow as molasses. Why does it take you so long to wash some damn dishes?”
I don’t know why God sent me to Ms. Stein. I don’t know why God does a lot of things. But Momma always told me not to ask questions and to keep praying. Even for fat, mean white ladies like Ms. Stein.
“I still see grease on that counter! If I can see it, why can’t you?”
That is the only advice Momma ever really gave me. Keep praying. God will work everything out. It never occurred to her that maybe she should try to work some things out for herself. Sometimes I wanted to shout, “God’s a little busy, Momma! He can’t find your keys for you all the time!” She was always lazy like that, expecting everyone else to do everything for her.
God and I share the same problem.
Tara, one of my roommates, drops more breakfast dishes in the sink. She’s big, and black as tar, so I call her “Tar-ra.” But only in my head, because I don’t talk to anyone. Talk gets you into trouble and these girls are looking for trigger words to be set off. As far as everyone is concerned, I’m a mute.
“Clean it up, psycho,” she grunts and bumps into me with the hardest part of her hunchback shoulder. Tara tried to kill her boyfriend. Stabbed him ten times with a pen Scotch taped to a ruler. When asked why she didn’t just use a knife, she said, “Knives are too dangerous.” Seventeen but has the mental capacity of a five-year-old. She, no lie, still colors in coloring books and counts on her fingers, using her knuckles when the number goes above ten.
Kisha comes stomping, slippers scratching against the floor, with her nail file in one hand and curlers still all up in her hair.
“Oh my God, this place is so wack! I’m mad bored! Ain’t nothin’ out here! You know that’s why they got us here, right? To keep us all trapped and shit.”
She isn’t really talking to me. She’s just talking out loud with an audience. Kisha is from some projects in East New York. I’ve never been there. I’ve never been to a lot of places in Brooklyn. Momma said everywhere else outside our home was too dangerous. Kinda funny how our home wound up being just that.
“Dumb bitches won’t catch me slipping,” Kisha mumbles, checking her eyebrows in the microwave. This is a girl who threw a desk at her math teacher, paralyzing her from the waist down, just because she didn’t answer a question right. Most of the crimes the other girls in the house committed are like that. Crimes of passion, “snapped” moments, and good ole-fashioned wrong place–wrong time situations. My crime was more psychotic. I was the nine-year-old who killed a baby.
Allegedly. That’s the word they always used.
Everyone in the house knows what I did. Or thinks they know what I did. No one asks though, because no one really wants to hear how I killed a baby. They don’t even want to know why I killed a baby. They just want to pretend they know for knowing’s sake.
Excerpt from People magazine article “Girl, 9, Charged with Manslaughter in Baby’s Death.’’
An unnamed nine-year-old girl faces manslaughter charges in the death of little Alyssa Richardson. The case is generating controversy and tough questions about blame. Who should decide the outcome—the criminal courts or mental health experts—and can such a young defendant be judged competent to stand trial?
The girl, who is the daughter of the babysitter charged with Alyssa’s care, is currently in state custody, due in court at the end of March. If found guilty as a juvenile, she could face the maximum eleven-year sentence, locked in a state penitentiary until she is twenty-one years of age. A second option would be to keep the child in a juvenile facility until she is twenty-one, at which point a judge could consider sentencing her to an adult prison for the maximum term.
The group home is always muggy, like we live in an old shoe, smelling like corn chips mixed with roach spray. I never call the group home “home.” It’s not a home. No house where you fear for your life can be considered a home. It’s in Flatlands, by absolutely nothing. From the outside, it looks like a two-story brick-face house. There are four bedrooms, two bathrooms, a living room/dining room, kitchen, office, and a half-finished basement. The sitting room looks like a doctor’s waiting area. It’s for visitors like family, social workers, or parole officers.
“Mary! Quit your goddamn daydreaming and mop them floors! Here, make ’em shine.”
The mop. A stringy black wig attached to a faded yellow pole. She pours a mixture of bleach and Pine-Sol on the warped floor, the burning stench inching down my throat like a knife forcing me to gag, eyes leaking.
“What’s wrong with you! You pregnant or something? You better not be pregnant!”
The yellow linoleum becomes blacker, years of dirt bleeding back into the floor. I wonder how many girls used this same mop before me. Stupid, because no matter how much she makes us clean, it doesn’t stop the army of mice and the swarm of roaches from visiting us in our rooms at night. Dust covering our lungs like plastic, sitting in cat-piss-soaked furniture, with dark panel walls leaving the house in a constant shadow. Let’s just say I’ve lived in better conditions. Then again, I’ve also lived in worse.
The doorbell buzzes. It’s not a friendly buzz, more like an angry dryer finishing its load.
“Reba! Get the door!” Ms. Stein hollers next to my ear.
Ms. Reba is security, Ms. Stein’s second in command, also known as her sister. She’s the taller, thinner version of Ms. Stein, with greasy gray hair and giant breasts, wrapped flat so she can pretend she doesn’t have them.
“Alright. Alright,” she hollers from her post on the living room sofa. She wears black wrist guards and one of those weight belts that sits right below her bulging gut, yet I’ve never seen her work out or lift anything but food to her mouth.
The front door has seven bolt locks, one key lock, and a bar that takes her at least five minutes to open. “It’s for safety,” they say. But it’s really to make sure we don’t run away in the middle of the night. Not that I’ve ever thought of it.
You can hear her whimpering before the door even opens. It’s the new girl.
I shuffle by the kitchen doorway to get the first look at her. Mousy-looking white girl with dark pink lips and long, tangled brown hair, clutching a familiar state-issued bag of new clothes. Winters, my parole officer, escorts her in.
“Morning, Judy. Reba. Meet your new guest, Sarah Young.”
He passes her file off, then pats her on the back as if to say “good luck.” New Girl is crying. Real sobbing, snot-nosed tears. I’m jealous; I haven’t cried in six years. The tears are frozen inside with the rest of my emotions. She probably doesn’t think she did anything wrong. I was that girl too once.
“Thanks, boss! We getting any more?” Ms. Reba asks, pressed for more minions to rule over. Ms. Stein signs his clipboard like he’s a UPS driver delivering a package.
“Not sure, can’t say.”
“Well, come on, child. Let me show you your room,” Ms. Stein says before hobbling down the hall, the mousy girl following behind her.
“Thanks, boss. We won’t let you down,” Ms. Reba says.
He nods and adjusts his belt. From what I heard, he u
sed to be in the army until he got shot in the leg or something, so he always walks with a limp.
“Any problems?”
“Not on my watch. No sir.” She tucks her thumbs into her pockets and stands like Superman, smiling with teeth the color of corn, sharp enough to eat through rock.
Winters smirks then glances down the hall in my direction and nods.
“Addison.”
I nod back.
Winters had zero patience for me from the moment we met. “You’re gonna give me problems, Addison, I can tell,” he’d said. I’d wanted to ask why, but he’d looked like he wasn’t in the business of explaining himself to anybody, especially not to teenage girls.
“Staying out of trouble?” he asks.
I nod.
“Any problems?” His eyes dart to Ms. Reba then back at me. Ms. Reba turns, giving me a sharp look, a warning. One wrong answer could land me on bathroom duty for months. I shrug.
“Humph. Alright then, I’ll leave y’all to it. Social services here tomorrow, yeah?”
“Yup, yup! I’ll walk you out, boss!”
I go back in the kitchen, finish mopping, and head to my room. My bedsheets are piled on the floor in the hallway, sneaker footprints like tire tracks. The usual. I dust them off, remake my bed, and grab the Harry Potter book off my dresser. That joke of a bookshelf downstairs has the same crap they had in baby jail I’ve inhaled three times over and I’d kill for something—anything—new to read. But I’d never say that out loud. I’m a killer after all; they’d probably think I’d really do it. Figures of speech are luxuries convicted murderers are not allowed to have.
I sit and read about magic spells, waiting for the demon I was spawned from to arrive.
Excerpt from The Devil Inside:
The Mary B. Addison Story
by Jude Mitchell (pg. 21)
Dawn Marie Cooper was born in Richmond, Virginia, in 1952. The oldest of five children, she was forced to drop out of school at age fifteen to take care of her growing brothers and sisters.
“I was always taking care of babies. All my life.”
Her youngest brother, Anthony, died as an infant. The coroner ruled the cause of death as sudden infant death syndrome. Her brother’s passing inspired Dawn to become a registered nurse. It is unclear where she received her training, but she worked exclusively in a neonatal care unit for many years.
Allegedly Page 1