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Autism Vox

Trial of Karen McCarron:Day 1

by Kristina Chew, PhD on January 8th, 2008

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Yesterday, January 7th, was the first day in the trial of Karen McCarron, who is accused of killing her 3-year-old daughter, Katherine, by suffocating her with a plastic bag on Mother’s Day weekend in May of 2006. WMBD/WYZZ TV reports that

McCarron’s husband Paul was the first to take the stand. He testified that McCarron never accepted their daughter’s condition. McCarron had even suggested several times that they give their daughter up for adoption. Paul also said he was aware McCarron suffered from “on again, off again” depression. Under examination by the defense, Paul McCarron admitted he was aware of a history of mental illness on Karen’s side of the family, including her father’s bi-polar disorder. But he said her depression never manifested into any type of noticeable physical or mental problem.

WTHI TV (Terre Haute) reports that Paul McCarron “testified today that his wife was obsessed with finding a cure for the little girl.” It’s not clear what sort of “cure” Karen McCarron was “obsessed with”; in regard to treatments for autism, the word “cure” is often used in regard to biomedical treatments. A January 4th news article by David Mercer quoted Dr. David Ayoub, described as a “a leading supporter of a controversial theory that mercury in early childhood vaccines causes the disease,” said in interviews in 2006 “that he had occasionally talked with Karen McCarron after Katherine was diagnosed with autism.”

The prosecution, WMBD/WYZZ TV reports, plans to show that Karen McCarron

….“concealed the homicidal nature” of the three year old’s death. The state said in their opening arguments McCarron, a Clinical Pathologist, by profession knew death. They said only when she didn’t feel a heartbeat did she remove her hands from the plastic bag covering her daughters head. The prosecution says McCarron killed her daughter, brought Katie’s body back to her home and staged the body to look like the 3 year old was asleep – fooling McCarron’s mother and family present in the house. The prosecution says McCarron left the home to dispose of the murder weapon – telling her family she was going to get ice cream at the Morton Kroger store. The prosecution says when she returned, she went upstairs to check on Katie, screamed, and pretended to perform CPR on the dead body.

The defense plans to use an insanity defense.

The defense laid the foundation of a mentally ill woman, telling jurors to listen closely to the testimony. Defense Attorney Marc Wolfe said the state only presented a summary of events, and that testimony from McCarron’s mother, doctors and relatives will shed light onto her mental state at the time. McCarron has spent the last year and a half at a mental health facility. Wolfe says McCarron’s video taped confession (given at OSF Saint Francis Medical Center in Peoria) will play a crucial part in the trial, but added the confession must be consistent with the physical evidence presented.

Other witnesses called to the stand included Lisa Hill, Katie’s occupational therapist from Easter Seals:

She testified Paul McCarron seemed to be more interested in Katie’s health. She said it was only because Paul was more hands on then McCarron, and added McCarron still seemed to be a loving and concerned mother. She said McCarron told her several times she thought Katie was doing worse in therapy, but Hill said she had seen an improvement.

Two young women who were to be full-time caregivers for Katie testified; both had begun to work at the McCarron’s household the week before Katie’s death: “Both testified McCarron conveyed to them that she thought Katie’s condition was getting worse. Both women said they thought Katie was in a much better condition than other autistic children they knew.”

I will be posting daily about Karen McCarron’s trial, which is expected to last for a week and a half. I first posted about Katherine McCarron’s death on May 17, 2006 and have since written regularly about her. The case has generated a lot of feeling among anyone who hears about it (as a recent discussion here attests) and a lot of my own feelings are wound up in my writing about Katie. I met Katie’s grandfather, Michael McCarron, at an October 26, 2006, conference on autism and advocacy at Fordham University in New York city (the conference was organized by my husband, Jim Fisher; some 300 people attended, and at least one speaker mentioned Katie).

There are photos of Katie here: She was “beautiful, precious, and happy,” and that is why the pink “Katie ribbons” have a pattern of hearts and flowers on them.

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POSTED IN: Autism Advocacy Conference, Crime, Disability Rights, Legal Issues

15 opinions for Trial of Karen McCarron:Day 1

  • Kristina Chew, PhD
    Jan 8, 2008 at 8:42 am

    Today’s Peoria Journal-Star reports on the first day of the trial, in more detail.

    “(McCarron) would not accept a child with a disability,” [Assistant Tazewell County State’s Attorney Kirk] Schoenbein said during his opening statements. “She wanted the autism gone.”

    So after specialized therapy, education programs and tutors didn’t work, McCarron found a different solution, Schoenbein said.

    She drove to her mother’s empty Morton home a few blocks away from her own, took a garbage bag from the kitchen and walked up behind her daughter, who was playing on the living room floor.

    ………

    Testifying sometimes through tears and sometimes through clenched fists and teeth, Paul McCarron told jurors about the life he and his wife had before the death of his daughter, often looking in his wife’s direction.

    But Karen McCarron sat looking down, rocking slowly back and forth or holding her head in her hands.

    Paul McCarron said his wife had seen a psychiatrist, but had stopped taking prescribed medication in the months prior to the May 13 death. He said she stopped taking it because it gave her suicidal thoughts.

    She often mentioned giving Katie up for adoption, but Paul McCarron said his answer was always the same.

    “No way in hell,” he said. “She’s my daughter.”

    Paul McCarron also said Katie’s autism was not severe; she wasn’t prone to kicking, screaming, biting or behavior sometimes associated with more severe autism cases.

    The family had a large support group that consisted of both sets of Katie’s grandparents and two hired in-home helpers who were scheduled to be with the child nearly 40 hours a week, Paul McCarron testified.

    “Katie was always a well-behaved little girl,” he said, adding that she was developmentally behind for her age but learned the alphabet, knew shapes and colors, and recognized various animals.

    But those small strides weren’t enough for his wife, Paul McCarron said, who was very critical of Katie’s progress.

    “She felt anxious and very consumed with Katie’s condition,” he said. “Autism was something to be fixed.”

    Paul McCarron was in North Carolina when he got a call saying Katie had died in her bed. After flying home, he and family members found his wife on the bathroom floor with a knife wound to her wrist and an open bottle of Tylenol, looking at pictures of Katie and their second daughter.

    After talking to her in a bedroom, “she told me that she killed Katie,” he said. Police came to the house and interviewed the family. At the kitchen table, Paul McCarron said he told police his wife suffocated the child with a black garbage bag.

    “I remember that she corrected me and said, ‘It wasn’t black.’”

    Schoenbein said Karen McCarron confessed to her husband, her mother, police at the house and twice at the hospital where she was being watched after the suicide attempt. One of those times at the hospital was videotaped by police.

  • Kev
    Jan 8, 2008 at 10:11 am

    So the confession(s) is of vital importance eh? So vital the defence tried to have it/them removed?

    What crap.

    I have total and utter respect for Paul. He is doing the last thing he can for his daughter - giving an accurate account of her killing and standing up for her memory. This is a true father.

  • Club 166
    Jan 8, 2008 at 10:44 am

    This is almost too sad to process.

    But like other horrific things that have happened, it must. For this is not just about the horror of one killing, but the attitudes of some that lend support to such horror.

    Karen McCarron is fully responsible for killing her daughter, and the negative societal attitudes towards disability in general need to be crushed.

    Joe

  • christschool
    Jan 8, 2008 at 11:50 am

    My respect to Paul. He is a TRUE MAN and FATHER. Paul, like a true father, took over and gave Katie the love and acceptance that was her birthright and by god, he stands and “shouts” to the world that “My daughter was a human being”. I feel a connection to him through these words even though I don’t know him. Paul is my “brother”.

  • Kristina Chew, PhD
    Jan 8, 2008 at 11:55 am

    There was a section after “walked up behind her daughter, who was playing on the living room floor” that I could not quote. Let’s say my feelings got in the way.

  • Marla
    Jan 8, 2008 at 1:15 pm

    This is so intense it takes me a while to process it too. I admire you for taking the time to share this trial. What is your hope for the outcome?

  • Resolved: Keep on Listening and Hold the Pickles
    Jan 8, 2008 at 1:22 pm

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  • Eleanor
    Jan 8, 2008 at 1:32 pm

    Although it is hard to truly anticipate what will happen since we aren’t in the courtroom, I am having a tough time imagining that any jury would acquit under these circumstances. In order to do so, the jurors would have to accept not only that it is okay to have an impulse to kill someone because of the person’s disability, but okay to act on that impulse.

    On the other hand, I worry about a jury that has been influenced by things such as that Autism Speaks video that suggests that it is perfectly normal to want to kill autistic children, or the “Ransom Notes” campaign that suggests that it is perfectly normal to view one’s autistic child as some kind of alien pod-person. Things like this suggest that our country, in its quest for perfect children, might be heading backwards into eugenics.

  • Kristina Chew, PhD
    Jan 8, 2008 at 9:00 pm

    From today’s HOInews.com: At day 2 of McCarron’s trial, the 9-1-1 tape made on the day Katherine McCarron died was played.

    Karen McCarron did CPR on her daughter long after she knew she was dead.

    That’s what the prosecution says a 9-1-1 tape proves.

    The jury heard the tape in court Tuesday.

    In it you can hear McCarron saying “One, two, three..” as she presumably did chest compressions on her three year old daughter, Kathryn [sic].

    McCarron’s mother, Erna Frank also testified.

    She said Karen is a perfectionist who had trouble accepting that her daughter had autism.

    Frank says McCarron told her she had hurt Kathryn after Kathryn was found not sleeping in her bed.

  • Kristina Chew, PhD
    Jan 8, 2008 at 11:19 pm

    Michael McCarron, Karen McCarron’s father-in-law testified today, WANDtv reports.

    The father-in-law of a woman on trial for suffocating her 3-year-old autistic daughter says she thought her life would be “perfect” without the girl.

    Michael McCarron testified today that Karen McCarron called from the hospital after a suicide attempt and told him she hurt her baby and thought her life would be be perfect without her.

    Jurors also listened to a 911 call made from Karen McCarron’s home on the day Katherine McCarron died.

  • Regan
    Jan 9, 2008 at 3:28 am

    No one’s life is perfect…ever, although acceptance, patience and a sense of humor can make a big difference.
    I believe this is about unrealistic expectations and control.
    This is so depressing. Poor Katie.

  • Kristina Chew, PhD
    Jan 9, 2008 at 3:52 am

    It’s wrenching and so much else—–

  • Bink
    Jan 9, 2008 at 9:38 am

    It is so wrenching. I actually have to stop reading these updates in the morning before I get my children off to school, or they will wonder why Mommy is crying. One thing that especially bothers me is the “poor me” attitude of Dr. McCarron despite the level of support she had. I know parents of autistic kids who have had NO support, no aides, little money, who have been bitten and kicked and have spent sleepless night after sleepless night, but who have kept on going forward, loving their children and reaching out a hand for help. It’s just what a parent does.

  • Trial of Karen McCarron: Day 2
    Jan 9, 2008 at 12:40 pm

    […] McCarron’s mother, brother, and her father-in-law testified on the second day of her trial, the January 9th Peoria Journal-Star reports. McCarron is charged with killing her three-year-old […]

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