Sleep My Darlings

by Diane Fanning

  Over the next few days, many more Facebook memorials popped up—all filled with heartfelt messages and all plagued with the same problems arising from the dark side of the Web.

  Beyond those pages, the Internet filled with people wanting to reach out and comfort. On Parker’s Facebook page, a graduate of Fort Worth Country Day School wrote: “Please pray for the entire Schenecker family!!! ALL need our prayers for peace, strength AND forgiveness!! We MUST pray!!! CDS alums, how can we ever forget the support of Eddie Schenecker for ALL those years, our support for the family can NEVER stop. God will NEVER leave Parker’s side and neither can we!!”

  On a blog for runners, Coach Gary Bingham left a message expressing gratitude for prayers extended to him during this trying time and asked for prayers for Parker Schenecker as well as for the track team. “We may be small in numbers but every one of them have big hearts and are great friends to each other.”

  On Saturday evening, youth pastor Sarah Fuller opened the doors of St. James United Methodist Church in Tampa Palms to forty teenagers, Calyx’s former classmates at Benito Middle as well as friends from high school and a dozen Liberty Middle students who knew Beau. For an hour, the students poured out their grief with tears spilling down their cheeks. When it was over, they left the room cluttered with near-empty tissue boxes and wastebaskets piled high with crumpled white tissues. It was the first time many of them had ever experienced the death of anyone in their lives.

  * * *

  Sunday morning, Julie was released from the hospital and transported back to the Falkenburg Road Jail, which housed the largest infirmary on Florida’s west coast. She was placed in a medical confinement cell, all alone, at her request.

  She had no access to television or newspapers. She could leave her cell for one hour each day during recreation time to take a shower, use the phone, or go outdoors. Her actions that past Thursday took her from being a mother with an envied, loving family to being just another prisoner, swallowed up in the heartless reality of institutional life.

  CHAPTER 31

  Up in Iowa that Sunday morning, Julie’s former volleyball teammate Lisa Pilch rose from bed with an untroubled mind. She had yet to hear the horrific news tumbling out of Florida.

  She sat down to watch Good Morning America as she got ready for the day. When the shocking story about the Schenecker tragedy came flying out of the news announcer’s lips, Lisa nearly fell on the floor. At first, she couldn’t believe it. When acceptance seeped into her thoughts, she knew that Julie could not have been in her right mind when she committed that unspeakable act.

  Crying, Lisa signed on to the Internet to try to learn more. The whole time she searched and read, an unrelenting mantra pounded in her head: I can’t believe this. I can’t believe this.

  * * *

  Sunday morning, Detective Gary Sandel started his day at the medical examiner’s office, where the autopsies of Calyx and Beau Schenecker were scheduled that day. There Sandel met with Detective Danny Rhodes and Crime Scene Technician Matthew Evans. After the procedure began, Sandel turned over the observation responsibilities to Rhodes and Evans and went out to MacDill Air Force Base for his first meeting with the victims’ next of kin, Colonel Parker Schenecker.

  Rhodes and Evans would rather not be standing by these stainless-steel tables. Their presence at autopsies was necessary but not something they ever approached with any shred of enjoyment. This situation was worse than most, though, because the bodies belonged to two children who should have lived decades longer.

  Dr. Adams and his assistant removed and reinventoried the clothing of Calyx Schenecker, noting that the items were “unremarkable except for some blood staining.” The medical examiner then made a meticulous search of the exterior of the body, describing everything he observed down to the gold-colored polish on her toenails.

  He noted just one scar on the front of her right shoulder, no tattoos, and no recent injuries prior to the traumatic event that took her life. He then recorded the graphic detail regarding the bullet wound inflicted to the back of her head and face, including the location, size, shape, and path. He indicated that there was no stippling, soot, or muzzle stamp demonstrating that it was not a contact wound.

  There were no exit wounds. He recovered two copper-jacketed projectiles—both consisting of two separate pieces, the jacket itself and the lead slug. Then, even though the cause of death seemed obvious, he continued the procedure, with a thorough analysis of all her internal organs. He found nothing out of the ordinary for a young adolescent female. The toxicology report ultimately reported no suspicious or illegal substances in her body.

  Next, Adams began the autopsy on Beau. The results were quite similar—only the age, sex, and position of the projectiles changed and, in this case, there was an exit wound.

  The conclusions for both of the children were the same: cause of death “gunshot wound of the head with perforation of the skull and brain”; and manner of death “homicide—shot by other person(s) with handgun(s).”

  * * *

  Detective Sandel’s task, though not as viscerally unpleasant, was still an onerous one—speaking to a family member of the deceased. At least the death notification was out of the way and he would not have to be the first to deliver that unwelcome news.

  Parker’s friend Colonel Hamby met Sandel at the front gate of MacDill and escorted him back to his on-base residence. The distraught father waited for Sandel there. Parker hid his grief behind a steely, stoic front in keeping with his military background and rank. “My wife has battled depression for more than ten years and had checked herself into rehab centers several times in the past for substance abuse and alcohol,” he said. He paused, closed his eyes, and shook his head before he continued. “I knew she had depression issues, but I never thought she would do something like this to our kids.”

  “Could you provide the names of the rehab facilities where she stayed?” the detective asked.

  “Yes”—he nodded—“when time permits. Right now, my focus is to have the kids taken to Texas for a funeral, after the autopsies are done.”

  The tragedy of the crime swept over Sandel. Two dead children, one parent consumed by grief, and another locked behind bars: Could family dysfunction get any worse?

  CHAPTER 32

  The pilgrimage to the Scheneckers’ community of Ashleigh Reserve continued unabated throughout the weekend, with visitors dropping off tributes on the pile before they left. By Monday morning, a blanket of flowers, candles, teddy bears, handwritten notes and cards to Beau and Calyx, and copies of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire piled up on the ground outside of the gate—a visual reminder to everyone who lived there as they departed for work, school, and appointments at the beginning of a new week.

  Some of the parents were glad to see that outpouring of remembrance and grief, thinking it was a positive, healing component that would help them all get past the trauma. Others wanted it all to go away—the tributes cleared—nothing physically there to remind their children of what had happened so close to home. These parents also resented the presence of the media—the phone calls, the vehicles, the pervasive nature of the stories in print, on the radio, and on their televisions.

  * * *

  At 9:00 a.m., the Homicide Squad of the Tampa Police Department met to review leads and assign the next steps in the investigation. Detective Sandel and Crime Scene Technician Evans went to the impound lot to process the vehicle removed from the Royal Park Court garage.

  Searching the interior, Sandel found a projectile under the passenger’s side rear seat. Evans photographed it where it was found and took custody of the bullet. They also retrieved and bagged as evidence Beau’s eyeglasses that had been left on the dashboard, another pair of eyeglasses found in the vehicle, and a dry-cleaning receipt.

  * * *

  At Liberty Middle School and King High School, the school administration released the crisis intervention teams to help bo
th students and teachers cope with their overwhelming emotions and deal with their unexpected loss. As everyone arrived at the schools that day, all took note of the flag, fluttering at half-mast.

  At C. Leon King High, Principal Bruning’s voice rang out through the speakers in each classroom, asking for a moment of silence: “I need to make an announcement about the tragic loss of Calyx Schenecker at the end of last week.” She went on to explain the availability of counseling services. But she mentioned no details of how Calyx lost her life.

  At King, the counselors watched the students moving through the hallways, far more subdued than usual. The school was filled with quiet murmurs and muffled footsteps as if they feared waking the dead. Here and there, in the clumps of students, some wore Harry Potter gear in honor of their fallen classmate.

  The counselors warned students not to internalize the tragedy and draw conclusions from it and apply the experience to their own lives. Many of them were wondering about their personal safety. They knew they’d talked back to their parents. They couldn’t help worrying that the same thing could happen to them.

  When one would voice that fear aloud, a counselor would ask if they’d had any fights with their parents in the last week. Students would admit they had—many saying it happened a lot of times, maybe every day. Then they would be asked about the end result. Almost universally, the kids said they were grounded. Being able to confront their fear and voice the reality of their punishment put many minds at ease.

  At Liberty Middle School, Vito Ricciardi, a school psychologist, led the counseling team. He met first with the school administration to discuss the violent nature of the crime, the “why” question, and the need to return the school, teachers, and students to a state of homeostasis and balance.

  His team commandeered the library to get his team ready for the first influx of students. Before the instructional day began, he met with the faculty, both to help them normalize and acknowledge their own grief and to help them cope with the children facing one of the most stressful times in their lives.

  “This is going to be a challenging day for you—your kids are torn up. You’re probably grieving Beau. Put your grief on a shelf and focus on the kids for four or five hours.

  “You never know which kid lost a grandma last month, which student has parents divorcing, which lost a dog the week before. Even if they don’t know why they want to go to the library, allow them to come.”

  He spoke briefly about dealing with the range of reactions from the students and told the faculty to expect everything from children who internalized all their pain and withdrew to those who were displaying anger and aggression, lashing out at everyone around them. He reminded the teachers that in extreme cases action needed to be taken immediately, because for kids reacting to pain “the only difference between suicide and homicide is the direction they pointed the gun.”

  “Remember, a smile, a hand on the shoulder, will let them know that you—that all adults—are there to take care of them.”

  The bell rang and the school day started with a moment of silence. Then the invitation to come to the library went out to all students in need of grief counseling.

  Twenty different therapists sat down with groups of six kids at a time. As the students settled into their chairs, the counselors said, “I didn’t know Beau. Tell me about him.”

  Using Beau’s class schedule as a guide, Vito went from one classroom to another speaking to larger groups of children. Most of them wanted someone to explain to them how a mother could kill her children. It was a question without any satisfactory answer.

  In every one of these classrooms, he saw a disproportionate number of kids wearing blue. He suspected that there was a reason and he was right: Blue was Beau’s favorite color.

  Ricciardi tried to help the students understand their own feelings by comparing their intense emotional pain to the physical pain of an injury. He acknowledged the students’ grief and drew a parallel between the emotional agony they felt now and the physical pain they felt the last time they were cut or broke a bone. “You have to open the wound, to look at and examine it,” he said. “Then you have to cleanse the wound to keep infection away,” he continued, pointing to similar catharsis from emotional pain they received when they talked about it with others.

  He asked them, “When you first heard the news, what did you think?” He listened as they spoke up—some for the first time.

  Vito then planted seeds to grow their coping mechanisms by talking about closing up the wound. “Sometimes we lose someone we care about and it makes us think about those losses. Did anyone here lose anyone before?” As hands went up, he asked each one, “How did you cope?”

  The students shared their experiences, giving strength to one another. Then, Vito talked to them about aftercare for their wound: “You might not sleep well for a while. You might have stomachaches and headaches. You might not like your favorite video game. But be assured, every hour that goes by, you are healing a little more.” He reminded them that ignoring wounds can lead to infection and told them they needed to deal with the emotional injuries in just the same way.

  Unlike the high school students, Vito did not find any of the younger students at the middle school who expressed any concerns about their personal safety. Since all of these children were from upper-middle-class backgrounds and none had known deprivation or experienced drug abuse by their parents or engaged in that behavior themselves, they felt firmly secure in their innocence.

  Children that age don’t really understand the permanence of death, Vito explained, yet they were very angry at the injustice of parental betrayal and furious with the “crazy lady.” Vito repeatedly heard the refrain, “This is not supposed to happen here.”

  “Every one of the students was frustrated because no one could give them the answer to the existential question of ‘why?’” Vito said, and admitted that he couldn’t do it, either, but he explained, “You cannot apply a logical explanation to someone who is delusional or a borderline psychotic. None of our logic works.”

  Throughout the day, students paraded outside to leave tributes—flowers, candles, and cards—to their classmate Beau. On the exterior wall, above these remembrances, someone hung Beau’s soccer jersey, which was filled with signatures by day’s end.

  Exhausted by the draining tasks of absorbing the intense emotional turmoil of the children, most of the counselors were ready to leave right after the students to marshal their resources for the next day. But they were still needed and remained on campus to meet with the members of the faculty in need of their help and advice.

  Vito could see the pain and emotional exhaustion in each face as the teacher entered the library. He tried to patch them up as best as he could, preparing them to face the next day.

  The team returned and counseled children on Tuesday and remained available all week in the faculty lounge to deal with any problems they had with students and any issues they were having with their own personal grief.

  Vito was impressed with the bravery and dedication of the teachers. During the day, they tabled their own grief and helped the kids to bounce back. The natural resilience of the children would set in with time. The school would recover its equilibrium, but he knew no one there would ever forget.

  CHAPTER 33

  Before her first appearance before a judge on Monday afternoon, Julie filed an affidavit requesting the services of the public defender’s office. On it, she listed her assets, including $20,000 in a bank account, $120,000 in mutual funds, $2,850 in rental income, $14,000 in savings, and 17,000 dollars’ worth of equity in real estate. She put an asterisk next to them, noting: “Owned with husband.”

  In the motion filed in support of her claim, Assistant Public Defender Robert Frasier wrote: “In the event Defendant’s husband proceeds to dissolve their marriage, two cars owned by the Defendant and the money market account will be marital assets subject to equitable distribution. Julie listed more than $800,000 in liabilities a
nd debts. She listed her number of dependents as zero.”

  That Monday afternoon, Julie did not appear in the courtroom, but she was present via closed-circuit television from the jail for the announcement of the foregone conclusion concerning the possibility of bail. In the courtroom were her two representatives from the public defender’s office, Robert Frasier, a veteran criminal defense attorney who had defended thirty-four first-degree murder cases, almost half involving the death penalty. Maura Doherty stood by his side to assist.

  Julie was called to the podium. She did not speak; she stood before the camera, weeping, shaking, and clutching a tissue. Her tears continued throughout the two-minute appearance.

  Judge Walter Heinrich addressed her: “Due to the nature of your charges and the strength of the case against you at this point, miss, you are obviously going to be held in jail without bond. I assume in the future, the defense will request the appointment of doctors. That’s something that’ll be taking place after they file the appropriate motions. You are excused.”

  * * *

  Another start-up Facebook page, The Official Calyx & Beau Schenecker Memorial Page, had garnered over two thousand fans by the end of Monday—just three days after their deaths were known. It called on the students at King High to wear green, black, and silver on Tuesday—another reference to the Harry Potter books. “After a successful first day in remembrance of Calyx with an amazing turn-out of Harry Potter gear—we want to keep it up and do Slytherin colors tomorrow!☺”

  Slytherin was the name of one of the four houses at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. It was the traditional home for students who were cunning, resourceful, and ambitious.

  * * *