"Jane" SWOVERLAND - 9 yo (2007) - New Britain CT

When Daniel Swoverland of New Britain got out of prison last fall
after serving less than two years for plotting to kill his 8-year-old
daughter and himself in 2007, he dropped a second bombshell on the
child's mother.
The former correction officer, still on probation,
went back to criminal court and asked a judge to allow him regular
visits with the child.
Elizabeth Luciano, the child's mother and Swoverland's ex-wife, felt
much of the security and comfort she and her daughter had built up
living in Maryland these last four years slide away.
She was
adamant during a court hearing at Superior Court in New Britain on July
11 and in interviews with The Courant last week that she didn't want the
visits to happen.
She said her daughter, now 12, was still too
young to reunite with the man who had bought a gun, laid out outfits for
both to wear at the funeral, left a murder-suicide note on the night
table along with two life-insurance policies, left a text message
describing where the bodies could be found when they washed up at Halls
Pond in Ashford, and took the child to the pond, carrying a loaded
handgun.
State police found Swoverland and the child unhurt in a
car on Route 44. The car had crashed after they had left the pond.
Swoverland, initially charged with attempted murder, pleaded guilty to
risk of injury to a minor, a felony, and received 21 months in prison.
Luciano said that's the last chance Swoverland will get to try to harm their daughter.
"He
had every intention of taking her life,'' Luciano said. "Now he wants
visits? She's thriving now. I would never put her through that. Who in
the world would?''
The answer is that Swoverland may get what he
is seeking. The issues at play are complex and go beyond a mother's
instinct to protect her child from further trauma.
Fear For Daughter's Life
At
the July 11 hearing, prosecutor Brian Preleski strongly opposed the
visits, saying that he, too, believed the child was too young and that
there no way to guarantee her safety even if the visits were supervised
and held in a secure setting. He mentioned a case in which a father shot
and killed his daughter and wounded a social worker in the parking lot
outside the child protection council office in Danielson in 1992.
Preleski
said that when Superior Court Judge Joan Alexander put Swoverland in
prison and signed a protective order barring contact with his daughter,
the judge contemplated a resumption of visits sometime in the future.
Alexander had stressed, however, that any visits should occur only when
the daughter was old enough and mature enough to protect herself and
reach out for help if she felt uncomfortable or threatened, Preleski
said.
But Swoverland's lawyer, T.R. Paulding, argued — and the
prosecutor didn't dispute — that the judge hearing this request has a
lot to consider. The case involves two courts, criminal and family; the
opinions of therapists; the role that a mixture of anti-anxiety drugs
and steroids may have played in the crime; and testimony that Swoverland
is not now the manic man who for several days selfishly plotted and
prepared to kill his daughter.
His lawyer was careful to tell Judge Frank D'Addabbo Jr. that they
were seeking only highly supervised, videotaped visits at the KidSafe
facility in Rockville, and that Swoverland would be ultra-sensitive to
his daughter's reactions. Paulding also noted that the family court had
approved a plan for the girl to visit Swoverland in prison, but the
protective order trumped that ruling.
Swoverland currently takes
no medication and completed a course of therapy that satisfied a
court-ordered condition that he seek mental-health treatment. He said he
has voluntarily continued with a monthly therapy session.
Luciano
said she has the sinking feeling that the system may usurp her role as a
mother. She said she, too, believes that it may be fitting for her
daughter to see her father again. But she said the time to do that would
be when her daughter is an adult, and not on Swoverland's time frame.
She also believes that the supervised visits would eventually become
unsupervised.
"I still fear for my daughter's life,'' she said.
'Exhausted And Confused'
Luciano
and Swoverland were divorced in 2002 after seven years of marriage.
They shared custody of their daughter, who was 3 when they split up.
Swoverland
testified before D'Addabbo at a hearing to modify the protective order
that he had a wonderful relationship with his daughter as she grew, She
did well in school and was involved with Tae Kwon Do and soccer. He said
he took a very active role in his daughter's life.
But he described a downward spiral in his own life that he said culminated in the murder-suicide plot.
In 2003, Luciano's brother, who had come to live with her, assaulted her daughter. He was convicted in 2004.
"And so, you stood by your daughter through that entire procedure?'' Paulding asked Swoverland.
"Absolutely,'' said Swoverland.
Swoverland acknowledged that Luciano also stood by her daughter, and
that there was a "mutuality of purpose'' in seeing her brother
prosecuted.
Luciano said in the interview with The Courant that
she was distraught over the incident, never saw it coming, and has since
disowned her brother, who served prison time for the assault.
Swoverland testified that in 2006 and 2007 several issues converged
that affected his life and began to change him. He said that in early
2007, he was found to have heart arrhythmia and had surgery. He said
that he thought he might be dying because his father had died of a heart
attack at the age of 51.
Swoverland said he was also going
through a lot of stress at his job as a correction officer and that
since 2006, he had been prescribed the anti-anxiety medication Paxil. He
said he was also taking a sleeping aid, Lunesta.
He said that at
some point in 2007 he was also prescribed the steroid prednisone, which
he said made him feel that he was "on six pots of coffee'' and in the
throes of a constant rush of "liquid adrenaline.'' He said he is now
suing the makers of Paxil for failing to warn of the dangers of taking
the drug with prednisone.
Swoverland said his mental health
collapsed during the week before the May 14, 2007, murder-suicide
attempt — a rapid deterioration he attributed to the cocktail of drugs
he was taking and despondency over not having his daughter in his life
permanently.
"I was exhausted and I was confused,'' Swoverland testified.
"Why
would you then start to encompass your daughter into this …?" his
lawyer, Paulding, asked him, according to a transcript of the hearing.
As
Luciano sat in the courtroom gallery, waiting to testify, Swoverland
said, "My daughter always wanted to be with her dad. Always. If it were
up to her at that time, she wouldn't go to her mom's at all. She wanted
to be with me. She would cry. She would beg her mom to stay an extra day
or two with her dad.
"I guess I began to start thinking … that if
I was to go, then my daughter didn't really want to be with her … and
for a very brief moment in time, I thought that thought process.''
Swoverland,
who spent 10 days at a psychiatric hospital prior to his arrest, said
he realized early on in the hospital stay that that he had been
irrational. He said his head started to clear as soon as he stopped
taking prednisone.
His current girlfriend testified that she
trusts him completely with her 9-year-old son, and two therapists, one
of whom studied the family for a report to family court, and the other
who treated Swoverland, said they support the idea of a gradual
reunification and supervised visits.
The prosecutor, Preleski,
said, however, that he believed the therapists were "soft-pedaling'' the
allegations and the calculating and detailed nature of the
murder-suicide plan.
"Now I concede that Mr. Swoverland as we sit here today loves his
daughter,'' Preleski told D'Addabbo. "And I concede that Mr. Swoverland
up until the point where he had this mental-health breakdown was a good
father. … But the issue [the sentencing judge] expressed is that the
daughter should be at an age where if Mr. Swoverland is exhibiting signs
of erratic behavior ... she should be comfortable enough and mature
enough to recognize that behavior and pick up the phone and call her
mother or call the police.''
The prosecutor noted that
Swoverland's "mental health went downhill literally in a matter of days
in this case. … I don't know what the future holds.''
'One Last Hug'
Luciano
said she agrees Swoverland was a good father "up to the point where he
took actions intended to end her life. How can I accept that?''
It
is the details of the plot that haunt Luciano still: His favorite olive
green suit and the blue Easter dress her aunt gave his daughter, laid
out by Swoverland as their funeral attire; the purchase of the gun; the
insurance policies, the text message to his ex-girlfriend that said: "By
the time we are found it will be 2 late,'' according to the arrest
affidavit.
"Please let my family know. We can be recovered at the
boat launch at Hall Pond. I am sorry. I will always love U. Good-Bye old
friend. You all deserved better. [My daughter] and I are together and
that mattered most. Let my fathering legacy live on. This isn't your
fault," the message continued.
The day before the crime was
Mother's Day. Luciano had taken her daughter to the circus. When she
dropped her daughter back off at Swoverland's house that evening, he
said to the child, "Give your rmother one last hug.''
Luciano said that at the time, she didn't know what to make of those words. Now she does.
"And we're going to put my daughter back in front of this man? It's not fair to her,'' said Luciano.
She said her daughter does not want to see Swoverland at this point.
"When
she is old enough to reach out for help, when she is an adult and wants
to re-establish a relationship with her father, then I would support
her. But what he is doing here now — this is not about my daughter and
what is best for her, this is about 'poor Dan.' "
Now all Luciano can do is wait.
D'Addabbo has 120 days from the July 11 modification hearing to issue a written decision.


http://articles.courant.com/2011-07-30/community/hc-swoverland-daughter-visits-0731-20110730_1_swoverland-visits-child-protection-council-office/2