Decoding Madness by Ph. D Lettieri

Author:Ph. D Lettieri
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: undefined
Publisher: Prometheus
Published: 2012-05-15T00:00:00+00:00

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Since she spent a good amount of time with Janice—right up to the stabbing—I thought it especially important to interview Phyllis. Like Richard, she was ready to talk.

After some introductory formalities, I asked about her observations with regard to Janice’s relationship with Kimberly, given the time they had spent together. Her immediate response: “She loved her baby a lot.”

Several weeks before the offense, Janice called Phyllis, crying and saying, “Gang members are following me.” A few days earlier, she had been paranoid about the police, claiming they were “watching me.” Janice was “crying a lot” during this period. She was fearful that her telephone conversations were being tapped. “Pray for me,” she asked.

Phyllis noticed a change in Janice after her grandmother’s death. It wasn’t just depression. She was paranoid. Her behavior was unusual, and it was then that the paranoia surfaced. She frequently made irrational comments, like the one about her phone being tapped. During the week prior to the offense, Janice asked Phyllis to find a Buddhist temple. “Somebody put black magic on me.” This seemed especially odd, since Janice had never been a religious person. Phyllis told her, “There’s no black magic.”

So when Richard asked if Janice and Kimberly could stay with her, Phyllis was happy to oblige, especially in light of Janice’s recent behavior. Janice was afraid of ghosts in the house. When they arrived, Janice was weeping, with Richard trying to comfort her before leaving for work. Phyllis had made dinner, but Janice didn’t eat much. After dinner, Janice put Kimberly down to sleep, and they talked.

Janice asked Phyllis if she had located a Buddhist temple. “She wanted a big temple. I humored her,” telling Janice they’d find one the following day and “remove any black magic.” Janice said she would like to move. “My house is weird with a lot of ghosts,” but her husband “wouldn’t allow it.”

The following morning, at about 6:00 a.m., Phyllis was awakened by loud talking. It was Janice on the phone calling 911. She was screaming about stabbing the baby. Not knowing what happened, Phyllis jumped out of bed and went to Janice’s bedroom. There she saw Janice with the baby, who was wrapped in a blanket. Janice and the blanket were covered with blood, which was oozing out of Janice’s body from self-inflected gashes, and, as it turned out, from Kimberly’s body as well. The baby had been stabbed in the chest area.

Phyllis tearfully recounted how she stood there, frozen and whimpering until the police and paramedics arrived. “She loved Kimberly and always kept her healthy and happy,” Phyllis emphasized. Janice had “no malicious intent. . . . [I]t’s definitely a mental issue,” she said. “There’s a mental issue in the family. Her mother just left and her father was a “mental case” who spent years in prison.

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