It was a media circus. I was on tv and in every major newspaper around the world. It was on every channel. I was being called the first mercy killer by a father of his child. Whenever I saw, or heard the words ‘killed his daughter’, it cut me deeply. Not sliced me, that’s too easy a description, but cut me, tore at me inside. Like a punch to your stomach, only deeper. It was horrible.

I was in Time magazine. Even The Enquirer and The Weekly World News. I know this because I would get bundles of mail from everywhere. Europe, Canada, even Japan. I read them and they were either hate mail or people praying for me. I actually read through the hate mail. Anything starting with ‘God forgives you’ or ‘I’m praying for you’, I threw away. There was no God. How could there be?

My trial lasted a month. I was convicted of first degree murder and sentenced to life in prison with no possibility of parole for 25 years. I remember Judge Cowart asking me if I had any last words before he passed sentence. I was crying as I asked him, begged him, to let me say good bye to Joy before I was sent to prison. I didn’t think I’d ever be able to visit her again.

He explained he didn’t know if the Dept of Corrections would pay for it. Then, a Sgt., the guard who was in charge of the detail that brought me to the courtroom and took me back to my cell each day for the last 6 months, said that he and fellow officers would do it. This was the same officer that had taken me to the funeral home to see Joy, and to her funeral. He said that they would do it on their own time! I wish I could remember his name. I’ve tried, it’s just not there. He was a red headed Sgt. at the Dade County Jail and his picture was in the Herald taking me back to jail from the funeral home. If you should ever read this, “Thank You. I’ve never forgotten you. You gave me my last moments with my daughter for over a decade.”

I said good bye to Joy on Christmas Eve. I prayed beside her grave in handcuffs. It was surreal.

I’m at my daughter’s grave.

I’m at Joy’s GRAVE.

In handcuffs.

Convicted of killing her.

It was surreal.

The next day (I think), a guard came and brought me my clothes and told me to get dressed, as he stood there and watched. I was brought to a courthouse, for a bail hearing. All I could do was ask ‘Please let me go and see my daughter, please, please, please. And the judge did! Judge Cowart (I will always remember that man) let me go to the funeral home to see Joy, to her funeral, and after I was convicted he had me taken to the cemetery so I could say good bye to her.

I wrote the following poem for Joy and put it in her casket at her funeral:

We were so lucky God gave you to us,

You gave us your love, you gave us your trust.

With your golden blonde hair and eyes shining bright,

God made you so beautiful, so perfect, so right.

Now you are gone and I’m so full of grief,

Only 3 years old, your time here so brief.

But now you can see, you can laugh and can play,

And I promise you honey, I’ll be with you some day.

What love is, Joy was.

A day or two later after I had met with a shrink and started on I don’t know what kind of meds (What I was given, I took gratefully), I was given my clothes, taken to an elevator, and transferred up stairs to a ‘high profile’ cell block. When I was taken to the funeral home and to her funeral, upon return I was always put back in that strip cell downstairs for a day or two, leaving me naked and shivering on that narrow bench, not understanding how the world had tilted so badly.

I went on trial six months later.

So many questions. All I wanted to do was sleep. I was so tired. I didn’t want to think about what had happened.
They left me alone in an interrogation room and I climbed onto the desk and fell asleep.

I was awakened I don’t know how much later and told I was being taken to the Dade County Jail where I was going to be booked for 1st degree murder. As we left the police station or when we were entering the jail ( These memories are like leaves falling off a tree, so many, yet so random. It’s hard to put them in order), all of a sudden there were lights turned on everywhere and flashbulbs started to go off. I didn’t understand. I had no idea who I was, where I was. or what was happening. I was lost. I think I was in shock.

I was brought into the jail and placed in a strip cell where my shoes and all my clothes were removed. It was so cold.

I remember the cold.

I wrapped myself in toilet paper. From my ankles up to my chest. It was so cold. People kept walking by and looking at me as I lay on a narrow wooden bench meant to be sat on, shivering. Guards, inmates, and people in regular clothes. Some said kind things (I don’t remember what – just the tone), some said nothing.

But I remember one – this memory isn’t like a strobe light – it’s embedded in my soul. He came up to the bars and said “You killed your child. You’se a child killer.” and walked away

THAT set off the train

The train is what I call THOSE thoughts. Those thoughts that can only come from hell itself, because I know of no worse torture. “Were her last thoughts why did Daddy do this?” And “Did you do it to end her suffering, or yours, Charles?” They flew around my head, like a child’s train on a small oval track. Over and over again.

It doesn’t pull into the station as much anymore, but when it does.

That night, sitting in that strip cell, all illusions were gone. I had killed my baby. My beautiful little girl. To end her suffering? Yes. To end mine? I’m so afraid of that answer I can’t face it, even today. That night was long and painful and lonely and so cold.

‘Joy was at peace.’ ‘Joy was at peace.’ ‘Joy was at peace.’ I told myself that over and over and over throughout the night.

We spend all of our lives on a ledge. As life thrusts things at us, sometimes we’re pushed off.

I got the bottle of valium the mental health center had prescribed me and poured them out onto the kitchen table. Then I started crushing them. When I was finished, I put the bottle of valium, and a gun, into my jacket pocket.

It was raining as I got on my motorcycle. The rain mixed with my tears as I drove.

When I got to the pediatric intensive care unit, I sat with Joy, holding her and singing softly to her for 2 hours, and then I opened her feeding tube, poured the bottle of crushed valium into it, and recapped the tube. I walked up to the first nurse I saw, I pulled out my gun and I told her ‘You are going to help me end Joy’s suffering or I will kill you.

And at that moment I would have.

She went and stood with me at Joy’s bedside as I waited for my daughter to die. I asked her if there was a God. She told me she didn’t know. I told the nurse to go and call the police.

As she walked away I told my little girl, “I love you so much. It won’t hurt any more, it’s over.”

I killed my daughter.

I remember it.

I remember a guy running over with a crash cart and I was up. “Don’t touch her, leave her alone! Your not going to cut on her anymore. LEAVE HER ALONE!” I screamed. I might have been crazy. I was hysterical.

A nurse, The nurse from Joy’s bed? was there and told him to leave us alone.

I remember it, the way he looked at her.

She told him “There are other children here, leave them alone.’ And he did.

A security guard came running up. I knew him, I’d have coffee and talked with him through many nights. He put his arms out and I fell into them. My legs gave out again, and we both started crying. A policeman came and I was put in a police car.

I’m at the homicide office. I remember all this in flashes. Like a strobe light going off in my mind.

I wish I could turn it off.

When I was at home and saw children playing or a toy commercial on t.v. I would start crying. It hurt so bad. I finally went to the Miami Beach community mental health center, told them what I was going through and that I thought I was going crazy. The doctor told me it was a terrible situation and gave me a prescription for valium.

When Joy had been in the hospital almost 9 months I got a call at home (Becky and I had separate visiting hours at this point) telling me that Joy’s shoulder had been broken. A nurse turned her too hard, or too quickly (she had to be turned every hour or so to prevent bedsores – but she was so stiff from her body fighting the erratic signals from her brain stem that turning her was sometimes unwieldy). I thanked the person, hung up, and sat there.

I thought of Joy going through the night in pain, screaming that it hurt, but only in her head, as she was turned off and on that broken shoulder for an hour at a time.

I sat there.

Thinking of Joy laying like that for 30 or 40 yrs. Never seeing. Never moving. Never laughing.

Thinking of Joy struggling to breathe as she was suctioned.

Thinking of unseen hands suddenly turning her without warning, scaring her because she couldn’t see or hear them coming.

And I thought of her lying alone in a large, empty room. Alone and afraid.

It didn’t help.

Then, CAT scans showed that the parts of Joy’s brain that had died from lack of oxygen were turning to liquid and being absorbed by her body. Her brain was shrinking.

To watch your child go through this and know there is NOTHING you can do –
Imagine your worst nightmare – then wishing it were only that.
It is indescribable. Words can’t touch the pain.

After 6 months Joy started having seizures. She would be laying in bed and suddenly her arms and her legs (which had removable casts on them to try to prevent drop foot, and were extremely heavy), would shoot out to the sides shaking, hitting the steel railings. I lined her hospital bed with stuffed toys so she wouldn’t hurt herself. Then I went to her doctors and agreed to sign the no-code.

But Joy’s mom refused. A nurse told me she heard her say that she was suing the recliner chair company (we both had law suits with different lawyers) and her attorney had told her that the chair company would have to pay for 30 – 40 years of medical care after a settlement or trial. Since Joy was in a vegetative state she didn’t think she was suffering and she was going to wait till the lawsuit was settled to make a decision.
This was in 1985 and without both parents signature there was nothing I could do (this was before you could go to court and get an order to discontinue life support).

The horror continued.

Joy started getting pneumonia. Her lungs had to be suctioned to clear them of mucus because she couldn’t cough or sneeze. This involved inserting a tiny tube that was attached to a vacuum. You continuously twirled it between your fingers while it was in her lungs so it wouldn’t stick to the lung’s lining. The problem was Joy couldn’t breathe while this was happening. So I would hold my breath as she was being suctioned and when it became uncomfortable for me I would tell (scream) at the respiratory therapist to bag her, give her air. They would reply, “She doesn’t understand, she doesn’t feel anything.”

I started suctioning her after that.

Charlie G Story – Pt. 2

When I got to the hospital, a doctor (It would turn out to be Robert Cullen, head of pediatric neurology) came out and told me that Joy had been dead when found by her mother, but that the police and paramedics had been able to get her heart beating again. She still was not breathing on her own and she had suffered massive brain damage from the lack of oxygen. He then went back into the operating room.

After countless hours (I do remember homicide detectives questioning us because Joy was not suppose to make it, and then going to get the chair), we were allowed to see her.

My beautiful, blonde haired, blue eyed daughter, who I had just spent the day laughing and playing with, YESTERDAY, lay unmoving on the bed. Joy was in a coma. A bolt had been drilled (drilled!) into her head to ease and monitor the swelling of her brain. Over the next few weeks a hole was cut into her throat and a tube inserted so a machine could breath for her and her stomach was cut open, a tube inserted and then stapled shut, so liquid food could be poured into her to feed her. After a couple of months, finally, Joy came out of the coma.

It would have been better if she’d stayed sleeping.

Joy was now in a vegetative state, blind, deaf and paralyzed as her body struggled with the erratic signals it was getting from her brain. Dr. Cullen and 2 other neurosurgeons asked us to sign a no-code, allowing Joy to die. They said she had only erratic electrical signals coming from her brain stem and she could lay like that for 30 or 40 years.

At first Becky and I both disagreed, we were sure we could get her to ‘wake up’.

I rubbed hot and cold wash clothes on her arms and legs, telling her “This is hot Joy” or “This is cold, honey”. I dipped a q-tip in sugar water and lemon juice, rubbing it on her tongue. I took colored gels from a spotlight at work and shined different colored lights in her eyes, telling her what each color was. I read every medical book and journal on neurology I could; even finding an experimental drug that was being used on brain damaged patients in Europe, to open new neuro pathways. Her doctors agreed to try it, saying, “Why not?”

It didn’t help.

Greetings everyone – Ernesto here. Recovery Arts has been very fortunate to have a friend in recovery, Charlie G., share his personal story with us. I must warn everyone that it is not for the lighthearted. I must also give everyone the heads up by saying that this is, without a doubt, one of the most remarkable stories I have ever read in my life. There is no amount of complements I could give Chralie G. to really convey the amount of courage he has for sharing his story. All I can say is thank you…truly. I know this will help many people out there.

Aside from the segment you’re about to read, and the subsequent weekly installments that will be coming, Charlie G. told me: “This is my story, which is what JOURNEY magazine & Joy’s House are for me – a constant amends to Joy, And to God.” Charlie G. has maintained, in his years of sobriety, his position as the Editor of the recovery magazine, “It’s All In the Journey,” as well as heading up a non-profit sober house for women in Miami called “Joy’s House.” All I can say is that he is a shining beacon for everyone in the recovery community that life is something we can win back and be happily in control of. Thanks again Charlie.

Do you know me? Really?
By Charlie G.

The hardest part of God’s forgiveness, is our ability to accept it. While I have accepted, with unbelievable gratitude, that forgiveness, forgiving myself is on a whole different level.

Now I am going to tell you my story. The whole story.
I live a life of recovery now; the main principle being rigorous honesty. Because before giving up, getting a sponsor and working the steps, my story haunted me.
Understand one thing before we start; I would have traded places with my daughter in a second. I WISH I could have changed places with her.

My story begins in 1984 when Joy was 2 yrs. old. Her mother and I were separated and Becky, Joy’s mom, kept her during the week at her parent’s home. Joy stayed with me on the week-ends when I didn’t have to work.

I had gotten home from work one day in Oct. when I had a feeling that I should go back (I was a projectionist at my dad’s theatre), even though I had just gotten off. I went to the corner pay phone and called my dad and asked if there was anything he needed. He replied ‘No, just come in tomorrow as usual.’

I went back home and sat down to watch tv when a feeling WASHED over me (only way to describe it – like a bucket of water being poured over you – but it was a weird feeling, not water) ‘GO BACK TO WORK!’ So I drove back to the theatre and went up to my dad’s office.

He was surprised to see me, and I told him I was bored at home and was just going to hang out for a while. As I sat down his phone rang. He answered it and a strange look came over his face. As he handed me the phone a feeling, this time a sick one, came to my stomach.

It was Becky, but I couldn’t understand her. Finally a man came on the phone and told me he was a policeman and that my daughter had been accidentally strangled after getting her head caught in the footrest mechanism of her grandfather’s recliner chair.

The nightmare had begun…