Julie had clearly stated her intentions with regard to suicide. Her journal made it clear that after killing her children she planned on taking her own life. Did she think she’d taken a lethal cocktail of medications that night? Did she totally exhaust her ability to take any additional action to complete her plan by ending her own life, too?
Complicating Julie’s mental health was her later diagnosis of bipolar disorder, also known as manic-depressive illness, responsible for unusual shifts in mood, energy, and the ability to carry out the tasks of everyday life. People with this disorder experience intense mood episodes that range from an overly joyful or overexcited state, a manic episode, to an extremely hopeless state, a depressive episode, as well as the possibility of a long-lasting unstable mood that isn’t easily broken down into separate mania and depressive episodes. Julie’s downs seemed to dominate, but Parker’s references to times when she was not compliant with her medication made it clear that there were episodes of mania in her life. The inappropriate clothing choices Julie made in the last week of the children’s lives was also indicative of a manic state.
Substance abuse is also very common among people with bipolar disorder—which was a major source of the turmoil in Julie’s inner life. According to the Mayo Clinic Web site, “some people with bipolar disorder may try to treat their symptoms with alcohol or drugs. However, substance abuse may trigger or prolong bipolar symptoms, and the behavioral control problems associated with mania can result in a person drinking too much.”
Bipolar disorder can cause angry behavior, energy levels that range from incredibly high to nonexistent, increased risk taking, and even feelings of creativity and mystical experience. Julie’s fascination with how the writings of Tolle made her see everything in a new way was possibly an outgrowth of her mania.
Although delusions, fixed, false, irrational, or illogical beliefs, and hallucinations, hearing, seeing, or sensing things for which there is no physical stimulus, are most frequently seen in manic states, the delusions are also apparent in severe melancholic depression in people with bipolar disorder. The types of delusions include both grandiose—making people believe they possess special gifts or power that others don’t have or that they have access to information that is hidden to others—and persecutory, a belief that people are out to get them or that something bad is about to happen.
Writer Sylvia Plath, who is believed to have had bipolar disorder, wrote before her suicide at the age of thirty: “It is as if my life were magically run by two electric currents: joyous positive and despairing negative—whichever one is running at the moment dominates my life, floods it. I am now flooded with despair, almost hysteria, as if I were smothering. As if a great muscular owl were sitting on my chest, its talons clenching and constricting my heart.”
Coming in third in d’Orbán’s list of common mental illnesses in mothers who kill their children was psychotic illness at 16 percent. Julie Schenecker’s diagnosis of schizoaffective disorder put her in this category, too. It is a condition with symptoms of both schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Take the bipolar symptoms listed earlier and add to the mix disorganized thinking, odd or unusual behavior, slow movements or total immobility, lack of emotion in facial expression and speech, and poor motivation. It is a chaotic and unstable affliction that creates an unimaginably difficult way of life.
Forensic psychologist Geoffrey McKee added a sixth category to the list of motivations at the root of mothers killing children: psychopathic killers. These women have dark, sinister reasons for their behavior, often killing their children or allowing others to do so for their own personal gain. These women kill for insurance money or turn their children over to sexual predators in exchange for the drugs to feed the mother’s habit. Some of them were victims of childhood neglect or abuse and inflict the same torment on their own children with glee.
Julie Schenecker does not fit into this category, although the prosecution would probably like it if the jury saw her that way. She does not display the aggressive narcissism present in a psychopath; friends described her as quiet and elegant. She did not have the socially deviant lifestyle stretching back to the teenage years that is the hallmark of these individuals. She did not have any of the other traits commonly seen in psychopathology: promiscuous sexual behavior, many short-term marital relationships, or criminal versatility.
In addition to the multiplicity of mental illnesses afflicting Julie, she also suffered from tardive dyskinesia, a permanent Parkinson’s-like disease brought on by some psychoactive medications. The condition causes sudden, uncontrollable movements of voluntary muscle groups in the facial features and in the limbs. Because of that, she had to deal with the fact that her body was now betraying her just as her mind had been doing for years.
Many people, including Julie’s defense team, wonder why Parker did not see the red flags of danger and take action. Looking back, we find it far easier to determine what we could have done differently to ensure a better outcome.
Parker, however, did not have a crystal ball, and living in the moment he did not believe that his wife would kill their children. A lot of people placed in his position would not have assumed the worst, either. Certainly he was aware of the presence of some fear in his children. He wrote to Julie: “They’ve asked their father for protection. The hard part of this is that they’ve asked for protection from their mother.”
In an e-mail to his family, he referred to his wife as having the judgment of a ten-year-old, but he had no way of knowing exactly what thoughts were racing through his wife’s mind. Maybe if he had been able to get feedback from her psychiatrist Parker would have been better prepared to protect his children.
HIPAA regulations stood in the way of him obtaining that information. Are the rules too rigid? Not having them in place opens up an enormous possibility of abuse and misuse of the material by a spouse without the best interests of a partner in their hearts. In this case, though, it appears as if it could have made a positive difference that could have saved the children’s lives. Their ability to change the outcome depended on how much Julie’s mental health professionals knew and how well they assessed the risks of the danger that Julie presented to those around her.
How can we help these mothers and prevent these crimes in the future? Experts have many specific suggestions for the prevention of neonaticide and infanticide. They even have many warnings and recommendations for proactive interference when risk factors are present. However, it is not always as easy to see or as easy to accomplish when older children are endangered by their mothers.
The most important thing we can do is make mental health services more accessible and more effective for everyone. Because of the cases of death as a result of systematic child abuse or neglect, we need to take every single instance of violence against a child seriously—even when the injury itself is not serious. Neither of those things will eliminate filicide, but they would go a long way toward limiting the numbers.
Perhaps the biggest part of the solution is for our society to develop a better understanding and acceptance of mental illness. We often expect people with depression, panic attacks, or psychotic thinking to pull themselves together, to snap out of it, to shape up—not a reasonable expectation. In the grip of the worst mental illness episodes, the sufferers clearly feel—and at that moment are—out of control.
Certainly, Julie Schenecker, unlike many Americans, had access to mental health care from trained professionals. However, in many ways, their hands were tied, creating an obstacle to the provision of good, effective treatment. Most conclusions psychiatrists and psychologists reach are based on the self-reporting of their clients. In addition, the professionals are prevented from discussing these disclosures with the significant others in their patients’ lives. Because of this restriction, it has been difficult to verify the accuracy of the clients’ statements and it has crippled the ability of people like Parker to play an active role in their spouse’s treatment and assessment. If there h
ad been an open and forthright exchange of information between Parker and Julie’s therapist, would it have enabled Parker to realize just how volatile the situation was before it was too late?
HIPAA was designed to protect a patient’s privacy. Its goal has been to prevent abuses that could result from shared information. It seems clear that there needs to be some modification to the act—a way of guarding the patient’s confidentiality, ensuring more effective treatment that could result from careful disclosure, and protecting the people around the patient, all at the same time. On the surface, believing we can balance those conflicting goals may sound idealistic and unrealistic. But if we don’t make the attempt, we block the possibility of finding any reasons for these lethal actions and doom others, like Calyx and Beau, because of our rigidity.
Once we develop an understanding of the causes of maternal filicide, then we can be more aware of the danger signals sent out by neighbors, families, and friends. Every incident of physical abuse of a child needs to be reported and treated as the risk factor that it is. Every person with mental illness needs to be encouraged to get help and to be reassured that they will not be ostracized because of the chemical imbalances in their brains. They need to get the help deemed medically necessary and should not be forced to leave a facility prematurely because the health insurance company refuses more coverage based on the corporation’s artificial, arbitrary, and stringent limitations. You cannot put a price tag on saving the life of a child.
While improving the current situation, we need to bear in mind that the majority of mentally ill patients pose no threat to their children. In helping the people who do, we need to be careful not to misjudge those who do not.
Acceptance of the reality of mental health problems does not imply excusing lethal behavior by anyone. Society—particularly its most defenseless members, like children—needs to be protected. Those who seek to do harm need to be separated from the rest of us. But more prevention through psychological counseling and psychiatric care can create an enormous reduction in the murders of children. Could any of us be opposed to that outcome?
How do we put Julie Schenecker into perspective? The mother whose murder of her child came closest to being like the crime committed by Julie was Stacey Pagli, who murdered her eighteen-year-old daughter less than a year before Julie’s crime.
According to mental health experts on both sides of the case, Stacey was under extreme emotional duress on February 22, 2010. Her husband had repeatedly told her to go kill herself and that he didn’t love her any longer.
When she came home from dropping a younger daughter at day care that morning, she started an argument with her daughter Marissa, an eighteen-year-old college freshman. The argument became physical after Marissa “mouthed off” at her. Stacey strangled her daughter to death, telling her it would be the last time she talked to her like that. She immediately attempted to end her own life by slitting her wrists and then by hanging.
She said to police, “I couldn’t take it anymore. She couldn’t talk to me like that.” Stacey pled guilty to second-degree murder one week after Julie murdered Calyx and Beau. She received a twenty-year prison sentence.
Unlike Julie Schenecker, Stacey did not premeditate this crime. It was an impulsive act of rage. Stacey did not face a full trial and a jury decision. At this time, it appears that Julie will.
In essence, the jury will have to decide if Julie is an evil, psychopathic, cold-blooded murderer who deserves death or if she is insane enough or sufficiently mentally ill to deserve mercy. Both sides will carefully prepare their arguments and deliver them with a passionate intensity.
But as Dr. William Reid wrote in the Journal of Psychiatric Practice: “Juries are frightened by people who kill other people. They are very often even more frightened when defendants have mental illnesses and psychotic symptoms that they find horrible or unpredictable. The very factors that both clinicians and lawyers consider mitigating, and sometimes exculpating, may instead influence a jury to incarcerate the defendant or recommend execution.”
The courtroom is certainly not a clinical environment where care is taken to understand each patient. Will the jury be able to set aside their fears and side with the defense theory of insanity? Will they follow the lead and opinion of the prosecution and send Julie to Death Row? Or will they choose a verdict and sentence lying somewhere in between the two extremes? Only time will tell.
Other True Crime Accounts by Diane Fanning
Her Deadly Web
Mommy’s Little Girl
A Poisoned Passion
The Pastor’s Wife
Out There
Under the Knife
Baby Be Mine
Gone Forever
Through the Window
Into the Water
Written in Blood
From the True Crime Library of St. Martin’s Paperbacks
The Lieutenant Lucinda Pierce mystery series by Diane Fanning
Wrong Turn
False Front
Twisted Reason
Mistaken Identity
Punish the Deed
The Trophy Exchange
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
DIANE FANNING is the author of the Edgar Award finalist Written in Blood: A True Story of Murder and a Deadly 16-Year-Old Secret That Tore a Family Apart, as well as ten other true crime books (available from St. Martin’s) and the Lieutenant Lucinda Pierce mystery series. She lives in New Braunfels, Texas. Visit her Web site at www.dianefanning.com.
SLEEP MY DARLINGS
Copyright © 2013 by Diane Fanning.
All rights reserved.
For information address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
eISBN: 9781466834545
St. Martin’s Paperbacks edition / May 2013
St. Martin’s Paperbacks are published by St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
Sleep My Darlings Page 18