By Matt Wiley
It’s been more than a year since the verdict was read for convicted killer Julie Schenecker, who murdered her two teenage children in 2011. Four years later, Schenecker said that she doesn’t regret killing her kids in an exclusive interview with reporter Sarina Fazan that aired on ABC Action News (WFTS-TV) in April.
Speaking with Fazan inside the Lowell Correctional Institute outside of Ocala, Schenecker, 54, gave her first interview since her arrest on January 27, 2011, when she was removed from the grisly crime scene in her family’s Ashington Reserve home. It was during her husband Col. Parker Schenecker’s 10-day U.S. Army deployment to Qatar that she drove to the Lock N’ Load gun store in Oldsmar to purchase the gun she used to shoot her 13-year-old son Beau in the head and mouth on the way to soccer practice in the family’s van, before shooting her daughter Calyx the same way as she sat in front of a computer while she was home doing her homework. Schenecker left Beau in the van, but moved Calyx to her bed, covering both in blankets. She even tried to arrange Calyx’s mouth into a smile.
Schenecker wrote about her actions explicitly in her journal, which was referenced throughout the case, especially by expert witness psychiatrists and psychologists who had worked with her in the past and knew about her struggles with severe mental illness.
It took a jury only two hours to convict Schenecker of two counts of first-degree murder on May 8, 2014, and she was sentenced to life in prison immediately after. State prosecutors pushed for the death penalty, but decided against it because Schenecker pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity, which ultimately can make it more difficult to carry out the death sentence.
In fact, a spokesperson for State Attorney Mark Ober’s office said that, “After being provided overwhelming evidence of mitigation due to the mental health issues of the defendant, it was determined that the imposition of the death penalty in this case would not withstand the scrutiny of the Florida Supreme Court.”
“I know you hate me,” Schenecker told Fazan. “Everyone here hates me. But, it’s okay because Calyx and Beau love me. I told them that I love them every day. You know that? Every single day…and they told me that they loved me. You know I heard that all my life, that I was a good mom. Nobody said that during the trial.”
Schenecker said that it was her “love for her children” that led to the gruesome crime. “I think the fact that I love them so much that I had to protect them,” she said.
Schenecker also told Fazan that she saved Beau from sexual abuse, but did not name who was abusing him, and that she saved Calyx from rape and mental illness.
Fazan also asked if Schenecker regretted pulling the trigger. She shook her head no. “Because I saved them,” she said.
Schenecker also told Fazan that she wanted to be punished for what she did, but not with life in prison.
“Death,” she said. “I wanted the death penalty.”
She also told Fazan that, if she could go back to that day and time, she she’d still do the same thing again.
“I would save them and protect them,” Schenecker said. “I do not know if there is another way to protect them, but that was the only thing that I could think of doing to protect them. I can’t think of another way to save them and now they’re in heaven, so they are saved. That is the only thing that I think could be good for them because now they don’t have to live the life I lived.”
Schenecker explained that she grew up the victim of sexual abuse, molested at age six and raped as a virgin at 17.
“My whole life has been a mess,” she said. “I don’t know how a person is to survive. How do you survive all that?”
During the initial interrogation and in her diary, Schenecker referred to her kids as “mouthy,” and that she shot them in their “mouthy mouths,” but she told Fazan that’s not why she killed them.
“Yeah, they are mouthy,” she said, adding that it was because they were teenagers. “I don’t think that was a motive. That was absolutely not a motive to shoot my kids.”
Schenecker said that the decision to kill her kids wasn’t pre-meditated.
“I was only going to kill me,” she said. “The whole plan was to kill me. I was just going to kill me. And, if they would have let me bought the gun on Saturday…take the gun home…it would’ve been over on Saturday. But, I had to wait and wait.”
Schenecker tried to explain her mental illness to Fazan.
“I understand that I do not think right,” Schenecker said. “I understand that I have a mental illness, okay? I understand that I have a difficult time with recognition of situations and reactions to situations. And…I don’t know…maybe inappropriate reactions to situations, but I only know that after it happens…most of the time. I think normal people…most of the time…they know what to do prior.”
She commended prosecutor Jay Pruner for convincing the jury that she was not insane and referenced previous moments in her life when she snapped, chasing down kids for touching her Christmas wreath and head-butting an Army commander’s wife at a function.
Schenecker also told Fazan that she wishes Parker would have institutionalized her, which she had asked him not to do in the past.
“Our pride kept us from addressing (my) mental health,” Schenecker said. “So, when I was sick, I did not travel, when I was sick I did not come out of the house. When I was sick, he knew it was just that ‘my wife is sick.’ That’s what we called it. I was stuck in bed. I would go weeks without showering, stuck in bed. Yeah, but I would not leave that house if I was not feeling and looking good. So, I hid it. I did not want anyone to know and it was our pride and for him it was probably embarrassment.”
Schenecker continued, “I have ruined way, way, way more lives than I would ever ruin (if it was) just me being mentally ill. If I had just come out and said I am mentally ill, and I’m dealing with it and I need help… The secret put me here and everyone who survived is ruined.”
To watch the full interview, click here.
No comment yet, add your voice below!