True Crime All The Time - Karen McCarron

Episode Date: March 13, 2023

In 2006, Karen McCarron murdered her 3-year-old autistic daughter, Katie. The details of the case are shocking and heartbreaking, but there’s also the reasoning behind the murder that truly tears people up. This is also a case that divides some, especially as it relates to the mental health of McCarron and the stresses that come with raising a child with autism.Join Mike and Gibby as they discuss the case of Karen McCarron. Karen admitted to several people before the murder that she was frustrated. Then, after the murder, she admitted her involvement to her family and to the police. When she went to trial, it was not a question of whether or not she had done it. The jury had to figure out if Karen was not guilty by reason of insanity. You can help support the show at patreon.com/truecrimeallthetimeVisit the show's website at truecrimeallthetime.com for contact, merchandise, and donation informationAn Emash Digital productionSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hello everyone and welcome to episode 324 of the True Crime All the Time podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson and with me as always. Is my partner in true crime, Mike Gibson. How are you? Doing good, man. How about yourself? I'm doing pretty good. I know you're a little under the weather.

A little bit. Your voice is a little extra. Raspi? I was going to say sexy. But if you want to go Raspi, I think people are going to think this is sexy Gibby. This is me with a. Yesterday I had no voice. Right.

And today it's just a little bit under the weather. Yeah. Hey, let's go ahead and give our Patreon shoutouts. We had Chuck Lewis. Hey, Chuck. Moose corn. Moose corn. Mm-hmm.

Okay. Diana Rhodes. What's going on, Diana? Michelle Ball. Hey, Michelle. Rihanna. Hey, Riana. Lisa Michelle.

What's going on, Lisa? Atlas Azriel. Well, thank you. Atlas. Matthew Henry. Hey, Matthew. Dave Susa. What's going on, Dave?

Jacob, Negez. Hey, Jacob. Stacey Halk jumped out at our highest level. We say, House? Howk. Oh, hey, Halk. Kelly Mashford. What's going on, Mashburg? Kim Smythman. Hey, Smythman. Kobe Crook. What's going on, Kobe? Amanda Meyer. Hey, Amanda. Christopher Barnett. Hey, Christopher. And last but not least, Kimberly Preston. Thank you, Kimberly. And then if we go back into the vault. This week, we selected Colette March. Well, thank you, Colette. Yeah, we appreciate the new Patreon support, the continued support. We also had some great PayPal donations, probably the biggest one we've ever had from Jana Bauern Find.

Well, thank you, Jana. We had donations from Gail Wilson. Hey, Gail. Jesse Kruger Automotive repair. Well, thank you, Jesse. And Mary Zano. What's going on, Mary? So appreciate all of that. So Gibbs, right now, we have an episode out on True Crime, the time unsolved where we're talking about the disappearance of Erica Baker. This is more of unresolved. Yeah. I would say than an unsolved, technically it's unsolved, but we like to call them unresolved because this is one of those cases where people believe they know who was responsible, but it's not been proven in court. Someone's been charged, but not with, you know, kidnapping, the murder, you know, anything like that.

It's a different charge. So I wouldn't technically call it solved. Yeah, definitely one you need to go out and listen to. Yes, because it's close to home happened here in our hometown. All right, buddy. Are you ready to get into this episode of true crime all the time? I'm ready. We're talking about Karen McCarran, which is a little tough to say, who in 2006 murdered her three-year-old

autistic daughter. So, I mean, this is a case where the details are shocking, they're heartbreaking, but there's also the reasoning behind the murder that I think, you know, truly tears people up. This is also a case that divides some, especially as it relates to the issue of mental health of McCarron and the stresses that come with raising a child with autism. So we're going to be talking about all of that. Karen Frank was born in Germany on December 20th, 1968, to parents, Walter and Erna, Frank. At some point, the family moved to the United States and settled in Illinois. There wasn't a ton of reporting about Karen's childhood. But to me, this is not a childhood case.

I don't think there was anything that, you know, happened in her childhood, happened to her, as far as I know, that could have even hinted at what she would one day do. You know, we see that a lot with serial killers. We do. We don't see it as much with, you know, people who kill one person or even kill multiple people in a single incident. Right. Sometimes it's there, but either it's not reported on or there just isn't anything to talk about.

Right. You see it a lot with serial killers. We do. The Chicago Tribune. reported that Karen graduated from Maine South High School in Park Ridge, Illinois. She then went on to attend the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She met and fell in love with Paul McCarran. They were described as college sweethearts and the two would eventually marry. You know, any college sweethearts? I do. Do you? Some high school sweethearts, really. Well, no, that's why I was

specifically asking you about college. most of my friends who are married married their high school sweethearts. I don't have any friends, really, that married their college sweethearts. Now, my wife and I didn't know each other in high school. We met while we were in college, but we weren't going to the same college. So you're kind of like college sweetheart. Quazzoi. Yeah.

Quasai. A little different. We met at Wally World while we were making $4 an hour. Oh, yeah. You know, back in the good old days. Back in the break room. Back in the stock room. In the stock room, exactly.

Not really working at that moment. Karen went on to get her medical degree from Southern Illinois University in 1995. The couple made their home in Morton, Illinois. And it was said in the reporting Gibbs that Karen's parents had a house just of a few blocks away. Karen worked in the medical field as a pathologist. And Paul worked as an engineer for caterpillar. It was like two good jobs.

Yeah. No, it does. I mean, and I have some experience with this, you know, parents living close. The one thing that I will say is it really helps out when you have kids and you need a little help. Well, for sure. To have one set of parents, even two sets of parents, be close and be able to, you know, watch the kids and all of that. my wife and I really had it good as far as that was concerned. Yeah, so did I.

When my kids were little, my mom and dad lived just down the street and it was very convenient. Yeah. Yeah, it helps out a lot to have that kind of family structure to back you up. Now, on the flip side, they would show up anytime they want it to. Well, there's the pop in. The pop in, which you're like, ugh. And to me, that's the you have to live with the good in the back. Exactly.

You know, you got to take the good with the back. because you're going to get the pop in. Absolutely, you will. In July of 2002, the couple had their first child, a girl named Katie. A couple of years later, they had another daughter named Emily. Paul's father, Michael, told the Chicago Tribune that Katie was a healthy baby. But just before the age of two, she began to show signs of autism, mainly delays in speech. According to the CDC website, Autism Spectrum.

disorder or ASD is a developmental disability caused by differences in the brain. Some people with ASD have a known difference, such as a genetic condition. Other causes are not yet known. Scientists believe there are multiple causes of ASD that act together to change the most common ways people develop. And they went on to say that, you know, there's still a lot to learn about these causes and how they impact people with ASD. SD. You know, I think it's important to talk about autism because I don't want to presume that everybody listening knows everything there is to know about autism. I don't know everything there is to know about it. People with ASD may behave, communicate, interact, and learn in ways that are different from most

other people. This is often nothing about how they look that sets them apart. The abilities of people with ASD can very significantly. For example, some people with ASD may have advanced conversation skills, whereas others may be nonverbal. Some people with ASD need a lot of help. In their daily lives, others can work and live with little to no support. Again, this is all according to the CDC website. ASD begins before the age of three years and can last throughout a person's life, although symptoms may improve over time. Some children show, symptoms within the first 12 months of life. And others, symptoms may not show up until 24 months of age or later. Some children with ASD gain new skills and meet developmental milestones until around

18 to 24 months of age. And then they stop gaining new skills or lose the skills they once had. As children with ASD become adolescents and young adults, they may have difficulties developing and maintaining friendships, communicating with peers and adults, or understanding what behaviors are expected in school or on the job. They may come to the attention of health care providers because they also have conditions such as anxiety, depression, or attention, deficit, hyperactivity disorder, which occur more often in people with ASD than in people without it. People with ASD often have problems with social communication.

communication and interaction and restricted or repetitive behaviors or interests. They may also have different ways of learning, moving, or paying attention. So, you know, these characteristics, these things that we've talked about can make life very challenging. But the CDC was quick to point out that it's important to note that some people without ASD might also have some of these same symptoms. So no doubt gives. I think when you look at it as a whole, autism presents challenges, not only for those who have it, because obviously it does, but also challenges for the parents of children with autism. So as it relates to the McCarrans and Katie, they attempted to get

Katie help through various local agencies, but I guess they felt as though the services were lacking, that was a very common theme in all of the research. And it wasn't just the McCarrans. Other parents of autistic children were interviewed by various papers. They said the same thing. The help is just not there. It's lacking. So what the McCarrens did was, number one, they knew that getting her help as early on as

possible was the best course. There was some stuff in the research that said, you know, you really, really got to jump on it very quickly to combat, you know, some of the symptoms or help in in the development of these children. So they began researching facilities, not just around them, really around the country. That was suitable for their daughter. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So they were very serious, right, about getting her help. The Chicago Tribune reported that they settled on the Mariposa school in North Carolina, which was considered, you know, one of the best facilities out there and which offered one-on-one intensive therapies. The McCarons made the tough decision that they

would need to live apart to help Katie get the best treatment. Various outlets reported that Paul was able to work in North Carolina with his same company, almost like a transfer. Right. But Karen wasn't able to find a suitable job in North Carolina. So in 2004, Paul moved with Katie to North Carolina, while Karen stayed in Morton, Illinois, with their youngest daughter, Emily. So that had to be tough, man. You think about the distance between North Carolina and Illinois

being that far away from your other half of your family. Yeah, absolutely. First of all, I want to congratulate you on saying Illinois. You actually said it correctly. And I don't even think you knew you did it. See when I'm sick. Things come out better.

Yeah. But no, you're right. It really is a tough situation. And I think a lot of people have probably gone through it. You know, you find a new job. So let's say, you know, one person has to go out for the new job.

The other person's left at home, wrapping things up, maybe trying to sell the home. And they're going to meet them out there. Okay, that's a tough situation. If you have kids probably makes it even tougher. Yeah. But now we've got not only kids, but Katie who's, you know, dealing with autism and Paul on his own, trying to take care of Katie. I think it just be rough because you don't have your full support system. Yeah. I think anytime you don't have it, that it's going to be rough. And then you have the additional expense,

right? I mean, you're maintaining two. households, really. Yeah, two payments, two rents, whatever it is, and then utilities and food and, yeah, all of that. So things went on like this for almost two years until Paul brought Katie back to Illinois in May of 2006. There was a lot of confusion in the reporting. Most of it talked about the fact that he had to go back to North Carolina to wrap things up so that he could then eventually move home for good. some of it said he and Katie moved back at the same time, but I don't think that's true. But either way, it wasn't long after Katie got back to Morton and before Paul could return, she was dead. So a lot of the following information comes from court documents on May 13th, 2006, Karen and her mother, Erna Frank, were at the McCarran House in Morton, Illinois,

with Karen's two daughters, Katie and two-year-old. old Emily. Karen spent about an hour at work that morning. When she returned, she fed her daughters. After lunch, Karen put Emily down for a nap. But rather than put Katie down for a nap as well, she decided to take Katie for a car ride to calm her down. Now, her mother, Erna, later testified that it didn't appear to her as if Katie needed to be calmed down. Karen then drove Katie to her parents home, which like we mentioned, was just a few blocks away, given that Erna was at the McCarran house and Erna's husband was in Germany. Karen knew that no one would be there at the Frank house.

Karen parked inside the garage, closed the garage door, and took Katie inside the house. and it was inside that house that Karen suffocated Katie by placing a white plastic bag over Katie's head. Makes me feel really sick. Well, it's heartbreaking. It really is to think about this three-year-old girl. And there were some comments, I think, that Karen made later that, you know, she could see her face through the bag and, you know, just really, really tough. approximately 45 minutes to an hour. After she left, Karen returned with Katie to the McCarron house, to her house.

Karen carried Katie into the house, passed a number of family members, and then carried her upstairs to bed. She told her mother that Katie was sleeping. Karen then went about her normal activities after she put Katie in bed, this was around 1 p.m. sometime during the afternoon. Karen's brother Walter came to the house. Karen sat in the kitchen with Erna and Walter who had talked to Karen about a recent trip they took. While Karen didn't talk a lot, neither Erna nor Walter later said they noticed any irrational

behavior or incoherency or really anything wrong with Karen. So really didn't have an impact on her what she did. Well, obviously they don't know that, you know, three-year-old. Katie is upstairs already dead. Right. They're going to find that out later. At one point, Karen decided to go to the local Kroger grocery store to get some ice cream. After getting the ice cream, she drove back to her mom and dad's house and decided that she needed to get the bag.

She used to suffocate Katie. She took that bag to a local gas station and threw it in a garbage can. She put some thought into this. Yeah. Now, I think she thought about that later, right? Uh-oh. I left the bag. Right.

I need an excuse. The excuse is going to be I need to go get ice cream. But really what I'm doing is making time for myself to go get this bag. Around 4 p.m. Karen said she was going to go upstairs to check on Katie because Katie didn't normally nap that long. and Karen screamed when she went into Katie's room and she told Erna and Walter that Katie wasn't breathing. Karen's brother, Walter Frank, was the one who called 911. On that recording, which was later played at trial, Walter tells a dispatcher that a three-year-old is not breathing and that my sister is performing CPR on her.

So we know what's going on, but nobody else does, right, at this point in time. All they know is that this young girl is not breathing. Yeah, she's in distress. That's all they know. When the police and paramedics arrived, Karen told a police officer that she found Katie not breathing. The officer described Karen as coherent and conversational. Karen and a paramedic attempted unsuccessfully to resuscitate Katie. The paramedic described Karen as unusually calm for the situation.

She was quick to respond to questions and she answered them in an orderly fashion. So, I mean, I think this stood out to first responders. Well, I bet. They go to a lot of scenes. They see how people act. Now, she was a medical professional, but this is her three-year-old daughter. To me, it's one thing to, you know, keep your composure and a brave face when you're dealing with some in a clinical setting or something like that, can you do that same thing or would you do that

same thing if it was your your own daughter inside your home? I would expect that she would be upset. Me too. And I think the first responders did as well. It's why they pointed it out. You know, how many scenes do they go to? I think they can, they can see when someone's not acting the way that they normally see people acting in a given situation. Well, she was a ruthless person. To be able to do what she did, she was ruthless, and obviously she didn't show any signs. Yeah, no doubt. And we're going to get into it, for sure.

Katie was transported to the hospital where she was pronounced that. The Peoria County coroner later testified that when he spoke with Karen at the hospital, Karen didn't try to embrace Katie and was pretty much unamboroughed. emotional. He said her demeanor was not typical for a parent whose child had just died. It's because she's the one that killed her child. But they don't know that. No, I know they don't know that. But that's probably why she was acting that way. No, yes, we know that. But I think all these other people are seeing it and they're viewing it as strange, maybe even suspicious. But police later said that Karen was not a suspect at that time.

They had no reason to believe that she had killed her daughter. They just thought she wasn't acting the way that most people would act. Yeah. Obviously, it raised concerns. Well, I think especially it did later on because a lot of these people, you know, probably said some of these things later on. It came out at trial. But at the time, with her not being a suspect, I don't know how much concern was raised.

Karen's husband Paul returned to the house from North Carolina around midnight that night. When Paul arrived, he and his brother had to break into the master bedroom and bathroom to find Karen. Karen had written a suicide note and she had taken numerous Tylenol pills in an apparent effort to end her life. And it was during this encounter that Karen told Paul she had killed Katie. She also told her mother that she had killed Katie. When the police arrived, Paul told an officer named Brent McLean that Karen had something she wanted to say. But Karen didn't respond. So Paul told McLean that Karen had told him that she had killed Katie. They transported Karen to the hospital in an ambulance. Her mother and a police officer accompanied her. The officer

didn't ask Karen any questions. And at no point was Karen placed in handcuffs or restrained in any way by the police. So being treated as if she didn't do anything wrong, right? Yeah, I mean, essentially, she's obviously in a bad way. She's tried to hurt herself. So they're getting her to the hospital. But she's also made this admission to multiple people that she murdered her daughter. So if you're Paul and you come home from this trip from North Carolina to Illinois. Number one, you find out that your daughter's dead. Heartbreaking. You're devastated. And then you come home to a scene where your wife has tried to end her life. And then she drops the bombshell on you that she's the one that killed your daughter. Man, that's a rough things to hear. Well, I don't. I don't.

know how you have a worse day than that. I can't imagine a much worse type of day than the day that Paul McCarran had right then. And I don't know how you recover from that. People do because they're strong and they're resilient, but it can't be the easiest thing in the world. Officer McClain asked Karen some questions at the hospital in the early morning hours of May 14th, 2006, Karen told him that she told Paul. She had killed Katie and said, let's leave it at that. You know what most police officers don't do? Leave it at that. Leave it at that. There's going to be a follow-up question after you say you told your husband that you killed your daughter, more than one, right? Follow-up question. Yeah. So this is the very next day, right, the next morning. So she kills Katie.

she tries to end her life that night. Paul comes home. She's rushed to the hospital, and the next morning, officers are questioning her in the hospital. But like I said, before then, she was not a suspect in any way. And police later admitted that.

McLean asked Karen where the garbage bag was, but Karen did not respond. So he repeated the question, and she said, I know you want to get evidence on me. She said she wanted to talk to Paul. And then it was said that McLean left the hospital and didn't arrange for any police guard on Karen's room. So I found a couple of those things strange.

Number one, she was never really handcuffed or strained. You know, now she's admitted it to the police. Right. And they just leave her there in the hospital. Now, she didn't escape or anything like that. No, but she could have. Yeah, potentially. Seems strange not to secure her somehow.

I thought so, at least have like a police officer, maybe standing guard or something like that. She was ultimately arrested and charged with two counts of first degree murder, one count of obstruction of justice and one count of concealment of a homicidal death. She was held on a $1 million bail and ended up pleading not guilty by reason of insanity. Now, she did eventually bond out and was free on bond for two years until her. trial. During that time, she went through a number of examinations to assess her mental status. And she was ultimately found mentally fit to stand trial. And you're going to see that in any case, right, where someone pleads not guilty by reason of insanity. It's probably one of the reasons

why her trial took so long to start. You got to go through all those examinations. Number one, you got to figure out first and foremost if the defendant is even fit to stand trial. That's true. Because that's a separate issue. The jury's going to have to figure out if they're not guilty by reason of insanity or guilty or whatever. But a person has to be deemed mentally fit to stand trial before it can even start. Before you can even get to that spot. Right. Yeah. So when all of this came out, because we just kind of did the timeline, it all happened very quickly, right? From the time of the murder. to, you know, her confessing. So obviously it's going to hit the papers and it sparked a pretty

heated debate. Papers reported many quotes from parents with autistic children saying that they understood what Karen McCarran was going through. Now, obviously, they all said that they didn't condone what she did, but they understood the stressors that she was dealing with because they dealt with them as well. The Chicago Tribune printed a quote from a woman named Lori Hisslob who served on the board of a Chicago autism support group where she said, we're not saying this was right in any respect. But we understand how she got to that place.

We've all been either at that place or near it, but by the grace of God, we chose differently. And I specifically wanted to put this quote in there because it really jumped out at me. We understand how she got to that place. To what place? The place where she murdered her three-year-old daughter? I don't know how you can understand that. Now, and then take it a step further. We've all either been at that place or near it.

So she is saying that all these parents have been either at the point where they were ready to murder their children or near it. I just thought it was a very strange quote. And I don't know. If that's what she really meant, it's kind of hard to believe that that's what she really meant. It's what it sounds like. I think she was better off if she would just say something like, you know, they get on my nerves. Well, or it's tough. Yeah.

It's tough being the parent of an autistic child. I can understand that. You know, there's things that you have to deal with that parents of children without autism, let's say don't have to deal with as much or as as constant or at all. True. So if you say I understand how she was really stressed or something like that, I get that. But if she's really saying I understand how she got to that place, whew, that's a tough one. Yeah, I agree with you.

Some people wrote editorials accusing people of exploiting Katie's death. to further their own agenda or their groups agenda. You know, and really what I saw was a lot of people in support of more financial backing or more resources to help with children with autism, kind of using this, the death of Katie as an outcry for needing this. And a lot of people didn't like that. I'm not saying they were wrong in what they were saying. I'm sure more resources were needed.

Right. What I'm saying is people got upset that they were using the fact that this mother killed her child to promote the idea that more resources were needed. I can understand why the people were upset that were writing it. I mean, really, I can understand both sides in it. But I don't agree with what the first group was doing that was trying to. to capitalize on Katie's death. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I'm sure they saw it as an opportunity maybe to emphasize the needs that existed

for children with autism, but no doubt. Some people had a very big issue with it. One of those individuals was Katie's grandfather, Michael McCarran. He told the Chicago Tribune, Karen had a lot of resources and help with Katie, whom he described as a happy and dearing child who loved to swing and play in the grass and would line up her tally tubby dolls so that they could kiss each other. He went on to say, this was not a question of there's no place to turn. There's no support.

This was not a murder about autism. And he said his grandfather's death should not be used to educate people on the stresses of autism. So you can tell he was definitely in. that camp. Oh yeah. And he was pulling no, no punches whatsoever. But it's also quite endearing to hear him describe Katie. There's not a ton out there about her because obviously she was only three years old. It really not much to talk about at that point. She hadn't lived. So you're not going to have the normal amount of background information on a victim that we would normally have. 39 year old Karen McCarron's trial began on January 7th, 2008, and the jury of eight men and four women

was faced with a big question. Was she legally responsible for her actions or not? Because we already said she had pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. So it's going to be up to the jury to decide her fate. The prosecution contended that Karen was a woman who killed her child. because she no longer wanted to deal with her autism. The Associated Press reported that the defense told jurors that mental fitness would loom large in the case. She is a woman who has dealt with life stresses. What we have to ultimately remember is what happened on May 13 and what her state of mind was on that day, not what her state of mind was three weeks before or after the crime.

Karen's defense attorney said she was deeply depressed and became delusional on May 13th the day she killed her daughter. Pretty straightforward. Well, it really is. I mean, you have both sides laying out there case. Now, there's going to be more, right, to back it up. But the prosecution essentially saying that she murdered Katie because she didn't want to deal with it anymore. plain and simple. Pretty cut and dry. And the defense saying that she wasn't mentally fit, right? The stressors, the, all of the stuff that she was dealing with, she was delusional. She was this, she was that.

She was depressed and that led her to kill her daughter, trying to play into their defense, which is not guilty by reason of insanity. The Associated Press reported that Paul McCarran testified on the first day of the trial and told jurors all Karen ever thought about was finding a cure for the autism. And he also said that she wanted to put Katie up for adoption. And this was something that really kind of came through loud and clear in the reporting. A lot of people use the word obsessed in talking about Karen and her thoughts about autism. as she was obsessed with finding a cure, making Katie better,

and we may talk about it more as we go along, but also almost extremely frustrated because she didn't feel as though Katie was getting better, at least the way she thought she should be. And it came through as almost losing hope. Right. Sounds like maybe she thought her daughter was, A burden.

Yeah. Yeah. That could be the case. And if you couple that with this notion that she's frustrated that Katie's not making progress, then can you make the connection that the burden is going to last forever? Because it's never going to get any better. Or it could get worse. Or it could get worse.

And there were some people. that Karen talked to this about. Some of them come up at trial. Paul also testified that when he returned home after Katie died, he found his wife locked in a bathroom. After kicking the door open, he found Karen on the floor with cuts to her wrists and Tylenol pills on the counter. He said in court that his wife told him she hurt Katie and then handed him her engagement ring. And I really didn't understand that. The only thing I could think of is that, okay, she's confessing. She knows it's, it's going to be over for her and Paul, as if to say, I did this. Here's, here's the ring. Other than that, I didn't know what else it could have been. Yeah, I agree with you. I don't know

what else it could have been either. I view it as a sign almost as submission. Like, I give up. I'm admitting it. I give up. Here's the ring. I know we're done. You're not going to. don't want to have anything to do with me. The Associated Press reported that Karen's father-in-law testified at trial that she called him after trying to take her life and said she thought her life would be perfect without her daughter. Can you imagine? No. Anyone, any parent saying not only that my life would be better without my child. My life would be perfect if my child, if my child, was no longer alive. I don't know how you can say that.

To anyone. Right. I don't even know how that thought enters your mind, to be honest with you. And if it did, who in the world would verbalize it? Well. A person who would murder their own child. Yeah, that's who. Yeah, it definitely sounds like maybe she had some mental health issues.

Yeah. And it's something that's going to keep cropping up and something we'll have to talk about. Another witness, Judy wrote, testified that she, and her husband, a minister, met Karen through a church function in 2005. She said that Karen called her several times on the day of her daughter's death and said, I did a very bad thing. And then she said, I killed Katie. So again, she is confessing to a number of people.

Both of these people described Karen as very calm during these phone calls. Again, that stands out, right? in every situation, whether it's dealing with first responders or the police or admitting to people that you killed your daughter, you are extremely calm and composed. That's not normal. No, that's not what people want to see at this moment. Or expect to see. Exactly.

And especially later on when they find out the truth, what really happened, those interactions are going to stand out. They're going to come back to them and think, oh, that's, that's strange now, knowing the facts. There were a number of witnesses who testified that they had conversations with Karen before the murder, where she expressed frustration with Katie's progress. Some people testified that Karen had told them she was afraid she had caused Katie's autism by allowing her to take certain vaccines. Okay. I don't want to get into a whole vaccine debate.

But for many years now, there have been some people, I guess you would call them anti-vaxers. That's what people call them. Sure. Yeah. Who have been making claims that vaccines could possibly cause certain conditions. And so, therefore, they don't want to take the chance. They don't get their children vaccinated. I feel like that's kind of the thing that.

she was saying. I got my child vaccinated and then she was diagnosed with autism. I caused that. I don't know what proof she had. I don't know, you know, where that came from. I mean, there's definitely a lot of conversation around that. It has been for years now. Yeah. High profile people have come out and said some things like that. So I want to talk about the differences in these phone calls. right the first set of phone calls we talked about were after the murder and karen is telling people that or admitting to them that she killed katie these phone calls these witnesses testified about occurred before the murder so you know they're giving a glimpse of her kind of state of mind prior to the murder and that's where you get this frustration with katy's progress that i

talked about. That was a big thing. It came up a lot in many different articles that she expected, this is what I took from it, she expected Katie to be making much more progress than she was. You know, she had returned from North Carolina, this very well regarded school. And she just didn't feel as though I guess she was making the progress she thought she would have. And, you know, then this talk about her believing that maybe she caused her autism by allowing her to get vaccinated. Now, obviously, these are very different types of calls because beforehand, you're listening, okay, she's frustrated. She thinks maybe the vaccinations were a bad idea, but I can't imagine there were any alarm bells going off to these people.

No, I wouldn't think so. Not to the point where you would be overly concerned and think you need to reach out to somebody. That's the thought that was going through my mind. Now, obviously, the other calls are much different because she's admitting to murder. According to court documents, evidence was introduced that indicated that Karen suffered from depression. In 2005, she began seeing a psychiatrist to help her with severe depression. She was placed on several different medications. She stopped seeing that psychiatrist in early 2006. And it was reported that she also stopped taking her antidepressants.

You know, for some, that's a okay thing to do, but most people probably not. No, I would say from my experience and the people who I know who take different forms of medications stopping abruptly or even missing doses can have a really bad effect on some people. Karen also stated that she had been having homicidal thoughts with regards to Katie at various times over the past year. And she took the stand during her trial, which I thought was strange. I always think it's strange. Most people don't.

You and I talk about it quite a bit. On the stand, she testified that she made a brief attempt at suffocating Katie with a pillow on May 10th. So that would have been about three days right before the actual murder. But she said the incident only lasted a few seconds. So she didn't have either the willpower or her daughter. Could have said something. I could have shook her off from doing what she was doing. Who knows?

Yeah, I didn't get any more around it. But there's two things there. She thought about killing Katie at different times for a year before she actually did. And then she made an attempt. She called it a brief attempt to suffocate her with the pillow. A defense psychiatrist named Joseph Glenn Mullen testified that Karen was severely depressed. and guilt-ridden the day she killed Katie, he said, Karen was severely obsessed with the idea and she believed it, that she caused her daughter's autism.

Even if she did, doesn't give her the right to kill her kid. No, no, definitely doesn't. But I think this is all playing into what really was the state of her mental health, depression, anxiety. this guy saying guilt-ridden over, you know, her thinking that she caused the autism. She's frustrated with the fact that Katie's not making progress, right? We're getting bits and pieces of kind of maybe what her, her mental health was at the time. Court records indicate that Glenn Mullen was of the opinion, that Karen's depression developed into psychotic depression in 2006, as evidenced by her delusional thoughts, such as a statement that Karen made on the stand,

which was that she believed she was killing autism when she killed Katie. Dr. Glenn Mullen acknowledged that the psychiatrist Karen had been seen from about August 2005 to February 2006 didn't observe any delusional thinking in her. her, the state presented Dr. Terry Killian, a psychiatrist who was of the opinion that Karen suffered from recurrent major depression. However, his opinion was that there was no evidence of psychosis in Karen. Dr. Killian disagreed with Dr. Glenn Mullin's opinion that Karen suffered from delusions, stating that her comment did not fit the definition of delusion as a fixed false belief. Also, Dr. Killian found it significant that Karen's statements about autism were usually

about how the autism affected her rather than Katie. And that's kind of interesting, you know, when you look at it that way. And it does seem to be true from all the statements and the research and what people, you know, who knew Karen and talked to her later said, it was always, her telling them how bad it was for her. Yeah. And obviously it couldn't have been a piece of cake for Katie. I'm sure it was very tough on her. But here's a woman, a mother, who doesn't seem to care as much about that. No, she doesn't. She cares about how it's affecting her. Her. She put her herself in front of her child. Exactly. So I mentioned it, right? Karen got on the stand, testified that she believed Katie was freed from autism when she died.

On cross-examination, she described the events surrounding Katie's death. She explained that she was standing behind Katie. When she placed a bag over her head, she forced Katie to her knees and Katie to lay down. Karen scrunched up the bag around Katie's neck and Katie stopped moving after a few minutes. Karen also admitted that when she returned to her home, she wanted to give the impression that everything was normal. So there's really no information here that we didn't already know. She's maybe filling in a little bit more of the details. And, you know, I said I was surprised that she took the stand. But I think we have to view this in the light of her pleading not

guilty by reason of insanity. Right. It's not up for debate as to whether or not she killed her child. Right. That part's out in the open. Nobody's disputing that fact. So she's not going to trip herself up and get caught up in a Perry Mason moment. I gotcha type moment. So maybe it does make a little more sense in those cases for a defendant to take the stand

because she's able to say some things here that could possibly make the jury believe that she wasn't in her right mind. You're saying things like you believe you killed autism when you killed your child. Yeah, which is not the case. It's not the case. But if you really did think that, maybe you weren't in the right state of mind. Exactly. Karen also stated that when she was sitting in the kitchen with her mother and brother,

she remembered that she had left the garbage bag at her parents' house. She thought it would be better to dispose of the bag at a local gas station. So she told her mom and brother she was going to get ice cream. She also admitted that she knew her attempts at resuscitating Katie would be futile. She knew she was dead. She was going through the motions to make it appear as though she was a concerned mom. She said it herself. She was trying to make everything appear normal.

And I'm sure she thought it would help deflect suspicion. away from her. Yeah. And I think that's kind of all of it part of the everything is normal thought pattern. Now, you know, we'll debate this mental health issue, right, after we find out how the jury ruled. Sure. The one thing that I will say is where we are now. I don't know what her exact state of mind was. What I will say, though, is she was very calculating, right? Going to a place that, she knew no one would be at to kill her daughter, bringing her back and carrying her upstairs as to make it look as though she was sleeping and then for whatever reason she didn't wake up. She was dead thinking consciously about it that I got to go back and get this bag and dispose of it.

Yeah, I think you have to factor all that in as well. Now, another really damning piece of evidence against Karen was a very very. videotaped interview that she did with police two days after the murder. According to court documents, during the interview, Karen stated that the decision to kill Katie came to her while on the afternoon drive. She stated that she just wanted autism out of my life. She thought she might be able to cure Katie by killing her and that maybe in heaven she would be complete.

She put the plastic bag over Katie's head because, again, she said she wanted a life without the autism and said that to get rid of it, I had to kill the child. She knew that Katie was dead. But when she arrived back at the McCarran house, she told Erna that Katie had fallen asleep. When she devised the plan to dispose of the plastic garbage bag, she thought that she could get away with the crime. So, you know, this is on videotape, right. You know, officers are asking her questions. She's giving this information. When you say, again, I thought I could get away with this.

Sounds pretty premeditated. It does. It doesn't fit with the not guilty by reason of insanity defense in my mind. She sounds really selfish. Oh, I think it's extremely selfish. I want autism out of my. life. Not that I want autism out of my daughter's life, right? I mean, she's thinking only about her. Now, she did say that she thought by killing Katie that in heaven she would be complete,

that Katie would be perfect, maybe. She doesn't use those words, but that's kind of the way I say. But I think what you're pointing out is even more important. I just wanted autism out of my life. Yeah. Which means in order to have that, I have to have Katie out of my life. Yeah. She never says, I want it out of Katie's life or I want out of mind in Katie's life. It's always, it was only about her. Right. So I think you bringing up the selfishness is spot on. So one thing I did find very interesting is that the Associated Press reported that during the trial, the prosecutor, asked the judge to instruct the jury that Karen's what he called open displays of rocking and contorting her face during testimony were not evidence.

So apparently she was really animated during parts of the testimony, so much so that this request was made by the prosecutor. I know Gibbs, we've covered a number of trials. And I'm not sure I've ever heard of that. There have been a lot of people who have made commotion. tried to disrupt trials. Yeah. But I can't remember a case where a prosecutor had to ask the judge to instruct the jury,

that a defendant's animations were not evidence. My only thought is that someone is saying something on the stand that she doesn't like, so she's making a bad face. So the prosecutor doesn't want the jury to take that is she's nonverbly disagreeing with that. testimony. Yeah. What else could, could she hope to gain?

I don't know. Now, the rocking could be nervousness. It could be, you know, a tick. It could also be put on. I think you have to say that. On January 17th,

2008, the jury came back with a guilty verdict against Karen McCarran. I haven't said it before, but that name's kind of hard to say back to back. Did I say that in the beginning? You did.

Oh, okay. It is kind of hard to say. That's why I don't say the whole name all that often. The jury deliberated for nine hours over two days, ultimately concluding that she was not insane when she killed her daughter. Sin News now reported that assistant state's attorney Kevin Johnson said McCarron also failed to talk about her struggles with mental illness on the stand. He said, the fact that she did take the stand didn't surprise me. What did surprise me was that she never explained or never went into any detail or depth about her mental history or condition

while she was on the stand. And you would have to think that is strange. I think you have to. If you're mounting an insanity defense and she did have documented visits to psychiatrists, a diagnosis of depression and things like that, apparently she didn't talk about what she was going through. when she had the opportunity on the stand. Now, you can blame that on her. You can blame that on the defense attorney for not bringing it out. But if it was important, wouldn't you make the effort? Well, how could it not be important?

You're fighting for your life, for your freedom. McCarron's attorney, Mark Wolf, said, we felt that at the very least, the evidence was overwhelming. As far as Ms. McCarren's mental illness and impairment she was suffering from, the testimony bore out the connection between the illness and the crime. But obviously the jury didn't see it that way. Karen McCarron was sentenced on April 1st, 2008 to 36 years in prison. The Associated Press reported that she faced up to 110 years.

But the judge settled on a lower number after the prosecution asked for 50 years. I think they took off the death penalty right away. Of the table yet. Yeah, I think they made the decision. they weren't going to go after that. Karen did read a brief statement at the hearing apologizing for killing her daughter. She said, I have no words for the loss of Katie. That apparently was her entire statement.

I have no words. What is that even a statement of? You're not saying anything. You're not saying you're sorry for what you did. You're not apologizing to your husband, your other daughter, your, family. I mean, at least say that much, right? Yeah, I don't get it. I don't get it. And maybe I would, you know, normally say people don't want to do that because, you know, they don't want to jeopardize an appeal later on. But again, the question of whether she killed her daughter was

never in doubt. So I don't know how apologizing, you know, would have jeopardized anything. an Illinois DOC inmate search shows that Karen is currently housed at the Logan Correctional Center. She was admitted on April 4th, 2008. Her projected parole date is November 6th, 2043. And her projected discharge date is November 6, 2046. Yeah, that's a long way to go. It is. It is.

I mean, I think she's about 55 years old or so now. So she would be close to 80 when released if she's not paroled early. Well, I think she's where she needs to be. You know, I don't know how a mother could do something like this. I know we've covered cases before. Mother has taken a child's life. I just can never understand it. No, it's always hard to figure out.

And, you know, maybe I don't know if this is any different, but not only a mother, but a medical doctor. You know, so this is someone who takes a pledge to do no harm, right, to anyone, let alone your own flesh and blood. The question that I have, and I think a lot of people will have in a case like this, it's not that what she did wasn't wrong. Everybody knows that. It's what role did mental health play in all of this.

If it did. If it did, I, you know, was she mentally ill and did, you know, a mental illness have something to do with, with what she ultimately did? Or did she want to be free of the burden of her three-year-old daughter who had autism and the insanity defense kind of came in later and some of the stuff came in after? That's always the kind of the question that I have in these cases that involve possible mental illness and then therefore looking into how it affected what the person did. I mean, you kind of want her to have a mental illness because it's the only way it helps with you reasoning. Or trying to make any sense of it whatsoever. Yeah, because outside of that, and that's not a great answer to it,

No. But it's better than saying she was just a selfish person that put herself above her child because she just didn't want to deal with the day-to-day activities of a child that has certain needs. Yeah. I mean, I don't think either of them are great, but one of those is a little bit easier to understand than the other. Yeah. There are individuals who have certain mental health issues that cause them to do things that they may, wouldn't have normally done.

If you couldn't handle it, why didn't you talk to your husband about it? Yeah. See, I just don't know. Maybe he would have said, you know what? I'll deal with it. You can't deal with it. I'll deal with it. Let's go our separate ways.

Yeah. I'll take the girls, or at least I'll take Katie. Yeah. And she didn't give anything of thought besides her. No, one of the things that keeps jumping out at me is Paul saying that she wanted to put Katie up for adoption. To me, that kind of screams the, I want her out of my life. I'm selfish. More than it does, I'm mentally ill. Yeah, I mean, it's saying she can't handle her child for whatever reason. But again, she had other options that she chose not to even look at.

Yeah. And I think you really got that from Paul's father. You know, he talked a lot to the Chicago Tribune. One thing I didn't mention that I saw in the research is that I think there were two full-time caregivers for Katie. So they had a lot of help. Yeah. And I think that's what he was saying as well.

not to mention the fact that like we said, they lived like a block or two away. They were probably helping all the time. It wasn't a lack of help. Now, I'm sure it wasn't a piece of cake. And I know there's a lot of parents probably listening that may have a child with autism who are saying the same thing.

It's a lot of work. It's a lot of work. It's hard. But I don't know how many of them are saying what that one lady said in that quote, which is, yeah, at times, we've all been at that point where we've, what, thought about killing our children? I know.

I can't imagine that. I can't. I can't either. But, you know, the jury listened to everything. They made their decision and they just didn't believe in her claim of, you know, not guilty due to insane. Yeah. But that's it for our episode on Karen McCarran. We got some voicemails, Gibbs. You want to check those out? Let's hear them. Hey, guys. This is Brian from. Georgia. I just want to let you know that all your talk about K-bar calls me to order one. And the knife came in and I showed it to my wife and I'm like, it looks a little sharp and I brushed my arm and it shaved a streak on my arm. She giggled about it. I'm like, well,

I don't know what I'm going to do about that. Or the next day, I was telling my boss about it and pulled out the knife and showed it to him and on the same arm shaved another streak of my arm. Thanks to Kvar and your recommendation, I had to go shave both of my arms. So I appreciate your guys' recommendations. It's a great night. I absolutely love the podcast and appreciate y'all. I finish unsolved since a little less than a year. And now I'm on your current podcast.

I'm called up. So thank you guys. And as far as teams, I'm Team Team Cat. Thank you. You know, I used my K-bar to shave my face every morning. Mm-hmm. I had to quit using it for the personal grooming because it's too sharp and I got too scared. Yeah, that's a scary thing.

So, you know, I don't know how many people know this, but I do talk quite a bit about your frugalness. Yes. To use a euphemism, you're frugal. Frugal. But what was it? A couple of Christmases ago, you did buy me a top of the line cable. I did. I love it. I have it right next to me in case you get squirrely or things go awry. But, you know, we love them. They're great knives. I also realize you don't have any hair on your leg.

So I don't know if you've been using that or no. No, I just need to be faster in the water. Is that what you? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. It's me and Michael Phelps. Yeah. Hi, Mike and Givy, for reasons that are probably going to become apparent. As I speak, I am not going to say my name, but I'm from Chicago. I'm 21 years old, and I just played listening to your podcast recently. It was great because I never found a true crime podcast that I adored as much as you guys are very detailed and also at the same time very respectful, and I feel like the combination of those two things is hard to find. I just finished your episode about Richard Farley, the stalker turned mass murderer, and I finally decided to me the voicemail. I don't even know if

guys play them anymore, but I finally decided to leave a voice now because that episode struck a chord with me. I really like how you guys mentioned how social media makes talking so crazy nowadays and so much more prevalent. And like I said, very respectful about that as always. By the way, I'm so sorry, Mike, but team giddy all the way. Well, thanks. You guys stay safe and as well as you always say, long time ticking. All right. Great voicemail. Yes, we do still play them. We do. Which she'll know when she hears her voice. Exactly. So, yeah, we love it. We had no mail bag this week. So that's it, buddy. No mail. No mail bag. I don't have nothing. It comes in fits and spurts. Did you say fits and spurts? Yeah. Isn't that a saying? Fits and spurts. Fits and spurtz? No, I don't, I think I'm saying it correctly. I don't know. Somebody will let us.

No. No, it seems like we'll get like two or three things, one week, and then the next week, nothing, and then the next week a bunch of stuff. About now and then. Yeah, you could, same thing. Wouldn't that make more sense? No, because that wouldn't confuse you. I'm definitely confused.

And then I wouldn't get to giggle about it. I got the confused looking on my face. I know I know I do. All right. So that is it for another episode of true crime all the time. So for Mike and Gibby. Stay safe and keep your own time ticking.