"Life would be perfect without Katie"

"I wanted the autism gone"

McCarron Trial: Day 2

McCarron told her that she was suicidal. Later, while McCarron was in the intensive care unit, another call was placed to Rohdy. This time, McCarron told her "I did a very bad thing, I killed Katie." Rohdy's husband also does ministry work, and McCarron asked Rohdy to have her husband "come and save my soul."

Jurors in the Karen McCarron murder trial also heard the 911 call placed after Katie McCarron was found unresponsive on May 13th 2006. Karen McCarron's brother made the call to police. In the background, McCarron can be heard giving her daughter CPR. McCarron is accused of suffocating her daughter Katie with a plastic bag. Morton police officers, a paramedic and the deputy coroner also took the stand today. The jury has now heard from 15 out of 36 witnesses.

Jurors hear 911 call made after autistic girl's death

PEKIN, Ill. (AP) - Jurors in central Illinois listened to the 911 call made from the home of a former pathologist accused of suffocating her 3-year-old autistic daughter on the day the girl died.

Prosecutors played about two minutes of the audiotape during the second day of Karen McCarron's murder trial. She's pleaded not-guilty by reason of insanity in the 2006 death of her daughter, Katie.

McCarron's brother, Walter Frank of Chicago, wiped tears from his eyes as he listened to the tape from the witness stand. Frank says he called 911 after hearing his sister scream that she couldn't wake her daughter.

On the tape, Frank could be heard telling the dispatcher "a 3-year-old is not breathing and my sister is doing CPR on her."

Prosecutors contend McCarron smothered the girl with a plastic bag hours earlier.

Information from: WEEK TV, Peoria, http://www.week.com

Witness: McCarron wanted 'perfect life' without daughter

Michael McCarron said his daughter-in-law called him from the hospital May 14, 2006, after a suicide attempt and told him how she killed his granddaughter.

Michael McCarron told jurors she said, "I hurt my baby," and "I thought my life would be perfect without her."

As her father in-law testified, the former pathologist, a graduate of Southern Illinois University School of Medicine in Springfield, rocked slowly back and forth.

Karen McCarron is on trial for allegedly suffocating Katherine "Katie" McCarron with a plastic bag on May 13, 2006. She is charged with two counts of first-degree murder, one count of obstructing justice and one count of concealment of a homicidal death.

Jurors also heard a 911 recording from the day of Katie's death and testimony from someone else who said Karen McCarron confessed.

Judy Rohde said she and her husband, who is a minister, met Karen McCarron through a church function in 2005.

Rohde said Karen McCarron called her several times on the day of her daughter's death and once on the day she was hospitalized after the suicide attempt.

"She said, 'I did a very bad thing,'" Rohde said, adding Karen McCarron told her, "I killed Katie."

Rohde said Karen McCarron then asked for Rohde's minister husband to come to the hospital because "I want him to come and save my soul."

Prosecutors say Karen McCarron also confessed to her husband, her mother and three times to police. One police confession was videotaped and will be played for the jury.

Witnesses also testified about antidepressants, Karen McCarron's psychiatric treatment and her time in a mental health facility.

Her attorney, Marc Wolfe, who has entered a defense of not guilty by reason of insanity, said she has been a patient at the McFarland Mental Health Center in Springfield since her daughter's death.

But Tazewell County assistant state's attorney Kirk Schoenbein said the woman signed herself into the facility. Schoenbein also said staff members have wanted to discharge her, but she has threatened suicide in order to stay.

Jurors will eventually hear from medical experts from both sides regarding her sanity.

Karen McCarron's behavior Tuesday in the courtroom drew the attention of prosecutors. She paced in front of windows in the courtroom during breaks, at times whispering to herself and at other times crying without tears.

Schoenbein said "open displays of rocking" and "contorting her face" during key parts of testimony can distract the jury's attention. He requested Judge Stephen Kouri to instruct the jury that her behavior is not considered evidence. Kouri took the request under advisement.

Prosecutors say Karen McCarron could not accept that her daughter had autism and became obsessed with finding a cure.

Karen McCarron told police she took Katie to her mother's house and let her play before suffocating her with a plastic bag.

She also said she drove the body back to her own house, put Katie's body in bed and returned to her mother's house to retrieve the plastic bag and dispose of it.

She then went to the girl's bedroom several hours later as if to wake her. Her brother and mother were in the home when she brought Katie's body downstairs and said she wasn't breathing.

Prosecution lays out case in McCarron trial;
girl's father says condition wasn't severe

Assistant Tazewell County State's Attorney Kirk Schoenbein on Monday described for a jury of eight men and four women the events that led up to 3-year-old Katherine "Katie" McCarron's 2006 death and her mother's suicide attempt and videotaped confession. McCarron is charged with two counts of first-degree murder, one count of obstructing justice and one count of concealment of a homicidal death.

"(McCarron) would not accept a child with a disability," 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.

"She pulls it tight around the back of (Katie's) head. She held it until Katie lost consciousness," Schoenbein said. "(McCarron) keeps her grip on that bag."

McCarron told police Katie died within about two minutes and said she checked for a heartbeat before driving her lifeless body back home.

There she held Katie's body close to her own and walked past family members, telling them the child was asleep, and then put her in bed.

McCarron then went back downstairs, socialized with her family and went to the grocery store to get ice cream. On that same trip, she went back to her mother's house, got the garbage bag and threw it away at a gas station, the prosecutor said.

Husband Paul McCarron was the first to take the stand Monday.

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.

Her attorneys, Marc Wolfe and Steve Baker, have entered a defense of not guilty by reason of insanity for McCarron, which essentially says she committed the crime but shouldn't be held criminally responsible for it.

In his opening argument, Wolfe did not address the events that led up to Katie's death. Instead he asked the jury to hold the prosecution to its burden of proof and discussed Karen McCarron's mental state at the time.

"This is a woman, Karen McCarron, who has dealt with life's stresses," Wolfe said. "What was Karen McCarron's state of mind at the time this offense allegedly occurred?"

Wolfe also said the videotaped confession she made to police is inconsistent with physical evidence.

The trial is scheduled to resume at 9:15 a.m. today.

Kevin Sampier can be reached at 346-5300 or ksampier@pjstar.com.

Mother-in-law: McCarron wished daughter dead

PEKIN, Ill. - A former pathologist accused of suffocating her 3-year-old autistic daughter with a garbage bag often wished the girl was dead and said she'd rather have a child with cancer than autism, her mother-in-law testified Wednesday.

"She said at least three to five times that I can recall, 'I really wish Katie were dead,'" Gail McCarron said during the third day of testimony in Karen McCarron's murder trial in Tazewell County Circuit Court, the (Peoria) Journal Star reported.

McCarron, 39, of Morton, has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity to two counts of first-degree murder, a count of obstructing justice and one count of concealment of a homicidal death in the 2006 death of her daughter, Katie.

McCarron, who has been free on bond since 2006, has been found mentally fit to stand trial. But a medical expert hired by her attorneys has said McCarron was insane at the time of the killing.

Gail McCarron said her daughter-in-law was very critical of the progress Katie made while at a special school for autistic children. Karen McCarron had asked her opinion about putting Katie in an institution, she said.

"Karen once said to me, 'If Katie had cancer, I could deal with it. But I'll never accept autism,'" Gail McCarron said.

Also Wednesday, Illinois State Police crime lab technician Ann Midden testified that she discovered DNA on a white trash bag found in a gas station restroom near the McCarrons' home after noticing possible teeth marks on the inside of the bag, the Pekin Daily Times reported.

Lab forensic scientist Debra Minton said she matched the DNA with a sample from Katie's body. And crime lab technician Robert Renea said he retrieved a palm print on the outside of the bag that matched Karen McCarron.

Katie's aunt, Jennifer McCarron, testified Wednesday that Karen McCarron was obsessed with curing the autism and would not accept her daughter's condition.

"It was embarrassing for her," she said. "She said she didn't want anyone saying her kid was slow. ... She looked at Katie as a problem and she got rid of her problem. There's nothing more to it than that."

Photographs of Katie have been made available for public use by her grandfather. Download yours here: Katie McCarron Photos

Initial news reports on Katie's murder
Daughter's murder puts focus on 'toll of autism' With a cautionary note by us on that "toll of autism" thing.
'This was not about autism', grandfather says
Katie's father files for divorce, citing 'extreme mental cruelty'
Karen McCarron admitted to planning the murder
'She told me she killed Katie'
Karen was described as 'lucid' and 'very calm'
Karen's taped confession played in pretrial hearing: 'I wanted to take the autism out of her'
Pretrial and opening statements
Relatives testify: Karen told Katie's grandma many times she wished Katie was dead
Karen on tape: 'In heaven, she would be complete'
Karen testifies: 'I thought I was killing autism'
Experts testify to Karen's 'insanity' -- 'She thought Katie and autism were two different things'. (If so, what about those NYU autism ransom notes?

More analysis of the Journal-Star articles.
Murder of Autistics (Archive)

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