CALYX and POWERS SCHENECKER - 16 and 13 yo - Tampa FL

The father of two slain Tampa teenagers says he is humbled by the
support he's received since his son and daughter were found fatally shot
last week, allegedly by their mother.

Army Col. Parker Schenecker thanked those who attended a 90-minute
"celebration of life" service Wednesday night in honor of his children,
13-year-old Beau and 16-year-old Calyx. Police have alleged that his
wife, 50-year-old Julie Powers Schenecker, fatally shot the pair last
week for being "mouthy." There was no mention of her at the service.

Parker Schenecker, who is stationed at the headquarters of U.S. Central
Command at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, was in Qatar at the time of
the killings, police said.

During the service, friends and teachers stepped to the podium to share
memories of the Schenecker children. Outside, in the church lobby, a
long line formed to write messages to the siblings, whose photos were
perched on a table.

The grieving father sat in the front row, listening to the tribute. As each student left the stage, he was there to offer a hug.

When it was his turn, Parker Schenecker spoke of his appreciation for
the memorial. He also asked his children's friends to carry on their
memories. "Please don't forget how they lived," he said.

Allison Newton, who taught language arts to Beau Schenecker at Liberty
Middle School, said she has already come up with a way to remember the
child.

"His seat in the classroom will remain empty in honor Beau," Newton was quoted as saying by The Tampa Tribune.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/03/AR2011020301469.html

Mother shoots kids, posh neighbourhood in shock

March 3 2011

The Tampa Palms neighbourhood here is the kind of place people move to get away from crime. Stucco homes with neatly trimmed lawns and spacious lanais nestle inside gated "villages" with names like Lancaster and Oxford Place. Real estate agents point out the proximity of "top notch" schools, the 18-hole golf course and other upscale amenities that "cater to a perpetually-on-vacation-like lifestyle."

But in recent weeks, the residents have become all too aware of how deceptive surface appearances can be. On Jan. 28, the police arrived at a two-story house on a quiet cul-de-sac in Tampa Palms to find Julie Schenecker unconscious on the patio, blood on her white bathrobe. Inside were the bodies of her two children, Calyx, 16, and Beau, 13.

Schenecker, 50, the wife of a high-level military intelligence officer, has been charged with the murders. When questioned, police said, she admitted to shooting her children and complained that they were "disrespectful and mouthy and that she was going to deal with it."

To the police, the physical evidence suggested a chilling sequence of events. Ms Schenecker appeared to have shot Beau with a .38-caliber handgun the previous afternoon while driving him to soccer practice, one bullet piercing the windshield and two striking his body. She then drove home and parked the van in the garage, where his body was found slumped inside the front passenger seat, the seat belt still buckled.

Calyx Schenecker was on the computer in an upstairs bedroom when she was killed. Two bullets hit her, one in the back of the head and one in the face. The bodies of both children were covered with blankets. Inside the house, the police said they discovered handwritten notes in which Ms Schenecker, who has pleaded not guilty to the crimes, wrote about killing her children and then killing herself -- the three days that she had to wait to receive the gun after buying it, she said in one note, had delayed the "massacre."

But she did not turn the gun on herself, and it was unclear why she was unconscious when found. Since the killings, neighbours, teachers and others who knew the family have struggled to reconcile the outward trappings of a picture-perfect suburban life -- the car pool, the soccer games and track meets, the Christmas card photos of a beaming couple with their two handsome, popular, high-achieving children, the family weekends spent boating or skiing -- with an act so dark that, as one neighbour, Matthew Patchan, put it, "there's no words to describe it. It was stunning, unthinkable."

Gary Bingham, who coached Calyx in track and field at King High School -- "the fastest freshman I ever coached," he said -- knew Ms Schenecker as an attentive mother who picked her daughter up from practice, attended team suppers and once surprised him with a birthday cake. He barely recognized the woman shown wild-eyed and shaking uncontrollably in a video taken as she was led from the house.

"I'm just looking at this person saying, 'Who is that?' " he said.

In the time he worked with Calyx, he said, "the girl never once said anything negative to me." Now he is kept awake at night by visions of the shootings. "You got to get that stuff out of your mind," he said.

Daisy Questell, who taught Beau at Liberty Middle School, searches her memory for something she might have missed. But she comes up only with the easygoing boy who teased her about the no-chewing-gum rule, "never missed an assignment or got a bad grade" and never gave any indication of a problem at home.

"I never heard anything about it, and you know how kids are, they say anything," she said. Yet such extreme violence rarely comes out of the blue, and since the killings, fragments of information have surfaced that hint that the family's veneer may have covered a more turbulent reality.

Ms. Schenecker was involved in a traffic accident in November, her Mercedes rear-ending a trailer being towed by another car. Florida Highway Patrol troopers noted that she showed "signs of drug impairment," including "dilated pupils" and "mush-mouthed speech." But she was discharged from the hospital before blood could be drawn, according to the troopers' report. Two days later, police detectives were sent to the Schenecker house afte Calyx told a counsellor that her mother had slapped her in the face. Ms. Schenecker did not dispute that she had hit her daughter, but she said that Calyx had called her "disgusting" and told her, "You're not my parent."

The detectives concluded that "there is no evidence of a criminal offense in this case."

Others also noticed small things that at the time seemed insignificant, but now make them wonder. Mr. Bingham, the track and field coach, recalled that sometime in the fall, Calyx's father told him that arrangements would have to be made to pick her up after practice because his wife was undergoing "rehab."

Mr. Bingham did not inquire about the treatment. "It wasn't my job to ask, as a coach," he said.

Lisa Pilch, who played Division 1 volleyball with Julie Schenecker at the University of North Iowa and kept in touch over the years, noticed at a reunion in 2009 that something seemed different about her college friend.

"I just thought that she was a little subdued," Ms. Pilch said. "I thought her eyes looked a little bit either distant or vacant."

Forensic researchers who have studied mothers convicted of killing their children said that such women often leave a trail of clues behind them.

"In almost every case there's obvious signs," said Cheryl L. Meyer, a professor at Wright State University whose research team examined 219 cases of maternal filicide and conducted lengthy interviews with 40 of the mothers.

As disturbing as such crimes are, they represent a robust portion of child homicides in the United States. Dr. Meyer found more than 100 cases a year of children killed by their mothers in the 1990s, a figure she says is probably an underestimate. Other experts, basing their numbers on data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics, believe that the number may exceed 200 a year, though precise figures are elusive because the deaths are often misclassified.

Many mothers kill their children through some form of neglect or repeated abuse. But in a quarter of the cases Dr. Meyer studied, the mothers purposefully murdered their children.

In a notorious 2001 case, Andrea Yates drowned her five children in a bathtub.

In 1995, Debora Green, a doctor in Kansas, set fire to her house, killing her 6-year-old daughter and 13-year-old son. When a third child escaped onto the roof, Dr. Green told her to jump but made no effort to catch her.

The victims in most maternal filicides are infants or younger children. But mothers who kill purposefully sometimes kill older children, including teenagers, Dr. Meyer said. Delving into the lives of such women, researchers often find histories of mental illness, broken relationships, social isolation or other stresses that may have helped push them into violence. Many are devoted mothers, who plan to kill themselves and become convinced that their children are better off dead than left in the care of others.

Geoffrey R. McKee, a forensic psychologist in South Carolina and the author of "Why Mothers Kill," said that in a severely depressed state, it was possible that a mother could misread the normal parent-child battles of adolescence.

"The children can be pretty much as they always are, but if Ma has changed, then banter on the part of her children can be interpreted as mouthing off," said Dr. McKee, who has conducted forensic evaluations in high-profile cases like that of Susan Smith, who was convicted in 1995 of killing her two children.

How much of what researchers have found might apply in Julie Schenecker's case remains unclear, although John Fitzgibbons, a prominent criminal lawyer in Tampa, said that the public defender representing Ms. Schenecker, Robert Fraser, is widely expected to offer an insanity defence for his client.

Mr. Fraser and the prosecutor, Jay Pruner, an assistant state attorney, have declined to comment on the case. The state has until early April to decide whether to ask for the death penalty. Ms. Schenecker, a former Army linguist, who in court appearances has wept quietly or sat stiffly, eyes closed, spent 20 hours in intensive care after her arrest, and remains in the infirmary of the Hillsborough County jail.

Ms. Schenecker's husband, Col. Parker Schenecker, an intelligence officer with the United States Central Command who was in the Middle East when his children were killed, has not spoken publicly about the crimes or about his wife, except to say, through a spokeswoman, that he visited her in jail late last month and informed her he was filing for divorce.

When he was home, Mr. Bingham said of Colonel Schenecker, "It was all about being at home with the kids." At a memorial service at the First Baptist Church here, Colonel Schenecker asked those who mourned the children to "please, don't forget how they lived."

The students who were closest to Calyx at King High School also prefer to focus on the image of the teenager they knew, a girl with an outsize artistic talent, a quirky fashion sense, a passion for Harry Potter books and an openness to new things that led her to sample strange foods like ostrich burgers and try to persuade her friends to sign up for a marathon in Thailand.

They planted a willow tree for Calyx in the school courtyard. They speak happily about their friend, but say they see no purpose in delving into reasons for an act they cannot comprehend.

"I'm not in a place to make sense of it," said Jena Young, 16.

Tampa, Florida - This year's Relay for Life event at King High School at 6815 N. 56th Street was dedicated to Calyx and Beau Schenecker of New Tampa. Police say the children were murdered and that their mother Julie confessed to killing them in January.

Julie Schenecker, 50, told investigators that she planned and carried out the shooting deaths of her 16-year-old daughter, Calyx, and 13-year-old son, Beau, because they talked back and were "mouthy." Her husband, a military intelligence officer, was on duty in the Middle East at the time.

While Julie is currently in jail awaiting trial for their deaths. Her husband Colonel Parker Schenecker spoke during the Relay for Life event on Saturday which was held at his daughters school.

He told the students, "Be proud of your accomplishments. I promise you that I am proud of all of you. My son and daughter are beaming with devotion and respect for you."

King's team walked until 8 a.m. Sunday morning to raise money for cancer survivors and victims. Students honored Calyx by keeping her as the team captain of the event and using the Harry Potter theme for their team which was called the Wizarding Independence Day team.

Colonel Parker Schenecker also presented a donation to the American Cancer Society for $5,000.

Julie Schenecker has entered a not guilty plea for the murders of her teenage children.
Her next scheduled court appearance is April 5.

kiwimom wrote:You're all used to hearing about people being shot but it shocks me. As long as sick people can just walk into a local shop and buy a gun these tragedies will keep on happening. If she couldn't just buy a gun they would still be alive. If you must have an armed population, why not have a law stating that you have to be seen by a doctor or psychiatrist first to verify you're ok to have one? It would make sense to me.

I read about it daily. I had a family member murdered in July with a gun.

However, it still shocks me. It is horrible. It is not something one accustoms oneself to. It is shocking every time.

Now, they are trying to pass a bill to allow guns on campuses and on school grounds. What a horrible thing this is, and the politicians are paid to promote it by the gun lobbying pacs.

Kids on a campus are too immature to control their tempers. They are too immature to comprehend the consequences of their actions.

As long as politicians are willing to have their votes bought and paid for, their integrity bought and paid for, their morals bought and paid for, we will continue to have these tragedies.

However, it is shocking. Horribly, disturbingly shocking.

Julie Schenecker: Documents tell more about her home life

9:24 PM, Jul 25, 2011




New Tampa, Florida - Nearly 600 pages of evidence were released Monday in the case of a Tampa Palms mother accused of killing her two children back in January.

In the hours after being accused of killing her two kids, Julie Schenecker looked like a broken a woman. New pictures released on Monday from inside the family's home show glimpses into what went on during that time.

Photo Gallery: Scheneker crime scene photos

For the first time, we saw the inside of the Schenecker home, which became a crime scene after police say Julie shot her 16-year-old daughter and 13-year-old son in the head because they were being mouthy.

The photos also show the gun, a 38 caliber, that police say she used in the murders. New interviews released show she bought the weapon less than a week beforehand, and told the store owners there had been a number of home invasion robberies in the neighborhood recently and she wanted protection.

According to the documents, police say they when found Julie inside the home, she reeked of alcohol, could hardly stand up, and was mumbling incoherently. A new interview with her husband Parker, reveals she had battled depression, drugs, and alcohol for more than 10 years and had recently been in a rehab facility.

Close friends of Julie's told investigators she had a problem with pain pills and they lost touch with her in the weeks leading up to the shootings.

New family photos found inside the house depict what looks to be a perfectly happy family of four, but documents show they had been in counseling and particularly the relationship with Julie and her daughter Calyx was broken.

Most of Julie Schenecker's statements to police while they were inside the house and after she was arrested are blacked out so we can't see them.

A number of pictures from the crime scene released were simply too graphic to show you. Schenecker has pled not guilty, and it's been speculated she may seek an insanity defense.

Her ex-husband, Parker, put out a statement on new documents, saying "Judge Moody's decision is another step in the judicial process, one that has highlighted the substantial burden and responsibility that comes with access to details of my children's murders. My family, friends and I, along with the thousands who have mourned Calyx and Beau with us will continue to honor my beautiful children, remembering them with dignity and respect."

http://www.wtsp.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=202683

State will seek death penalty for Schenecker


Published: August 12, 2011
Prosecutors will seek the death penalty for Julie Schenecker, accused of killing her two teenage children.

Prosecutors gave no reason for the decision in a terse notice filed today.

Circuit Judge Ashley Moody had given the state until Monday to make its decision.

The public defenders representing Schenecker have until Monday to decide whether they will use a form of insanity defense in the case.

Police say the 50-year-old Schenecker deliberately shot her 16-year-old daughter, Calyx, and 13-year-old son, Beau, twice in the head on Jan. 27. Officers found her the next morning unconscious on the back porch of her suburban Tampa home, the bodies of the children inside.

http://www2.tbo.com/news/breaking-news/2011/aug/12/3/state-will-seek-death-penalty-for-schenecker-ar-250145/

Mom Claiming Insanity In Slaying Of Teens
Posted: 1:18 pm EDT August 15, 2011

TAMPA, Fla. -- A Florida woman accused of killing her two teenage children will use an insanity defense.

Her public defenders filed their intention late Friday to claim that 50-year-old Julie Schenecker couldn't discern right from wrong when she shot each of the teens twice in the head on Jan. 27.

The filing said Schenecker was suffering from "bipolar disorder with psychotic features."

Schenecker faces two counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of her 16-year-old daughter, Calyx, and 13-year-old son, Beau, in their Tampa home. She told authorities she did it because the children had been "mouthy" and disrespectful.

Her husband told detectives that she had struggled for years with mental illness and recent substance-abuse issues.

Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty. A trial date has not been set.

http://www.wftv.com/news/28870601/detail.html

Her husband told detectives that she had struggled for years with mental illness and recent substance-abuse issues.

---Then maybe he should be charged also.
They should never have been left in her care is she was such a whack-a-doodle-doo!