Julie Schenecker, dressed in a gray suit with a button-down pink shirt, wiped her nose and eyes, then the bailiffs handcuffed her as the verdict was read after just more than an hour of deliberations. She started to cry. She was sentenced soon after to two life terms, fingerprinted and led away to prison.
Schenecker
killed her daughter, Calyx, and son, Beau, in January 2011, while her
now ex-Army officer husband, Col. Parker Schenecker, was on a 10-day
deployment to the Middle East.
Schenecker told the judge she takes responsibility for what she's done.
Through tears she said, "I know I shot my son and daughter. I don't know why. But I have time to try to understand that."
Prosecutors
said that few days after buying a handgun, on the way to soccer
practice in the family minivan, she shot Beau twice — once in the side
of the head and once in his mouth. She turned around, drove home and
parked in the garage. Schenecker approached Calyx from behind and shot
her once in the head and once in the mouth.
Schenecker wrote about the shootings in her journals, saying that she shot both teens in "their mouthy mouths."
If
she had been acquitted by reason of insanity, she would be committed to
a mental hospital until doctors and a judge agree that she is no longer
a danger to herself or others.
She
also said before sentencing that she believed in the U.S. judicial
system and would accept her sentence. Judge Emmett Battles ordered that
her life sentences be served at the same time, not consecutively, and
there is no possibility of parole. The defense made no immediate mention
of an appeal.
Earlier, prosecutors said Schenecker wrote in her
journal that she wanted to kill herself and wanted to be cremated with
her children, their ashes mixed together. She mentioned that she was
going to try to move her son's body into her bed and wanted to die next
to him.
"Beau and I are going to heaven," she wrote. "Wish heaven for Calyx too."
Before she was sentenced, she also talked about her children.
"I
know our children are in heaven. I want people to try to find comfort
in believing as I do that they are in no pain and they are alive and
enjoying everything and anything that heaven has to offer...Jesus is
protecting them and keeping them safe until we get there."
Parker
Schenecker and his mother, who sat side-by-side for much of the trial,
looked sad and exhausted as the verdict was read. Julie Schenecker's
sister cried softly. Parker Schenecker, who testified that his wife's
mental illness was a constant "drum beat" in their 20-year marriage,
read a brief statement after court."It's been a trying time for all of us," the 51-year-old career officer said. "Today's decision for many reasons gives my family a great relief."
He said his focus has always been on his children.
"Giving voice to them has been my top priority to this process," he said.
All
six mental health experts who testified said Schenecker was mentally
ill, but three experts called by prosecutors said she was legally sane
when she shot her children. When her psychiatrist was on the stand
earlier in the trial, she shouted: "Liar!" in response to him saying
that he had told her not to drink while taking drugs to control her
bipolar disorder.
Her
attorney, Jennifer Spradley, told jurors during closing arguments that
they needed to consider Schenecker's state of mind when she pulled the
trigger.
"Her mind is
clouded. She didn't choose this illness — it chose her," Spradley said.
"When she wasn't sick, she was a good mother."
Prosecutor
Jay Pruner told jurors in his closings that Schenecker was "desperate,
depressed, angry, but very determined." He said she was despondent over
what she thought was the inevitability of divorce from her husband. The
couple met in 1990 when he was a young officer and she was a military
interrogator in the Army and married a few years later. They divorced
after the killings.
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