Katie McCarron - a just verdict.
A verdict has been reached in the trial of Karen McCarron. A jury has found her guilty of murdering her three year old daughter, Katie McCarron. She is going to prison for a very long time.
Katie was autistic. From the accounts that I have read she appears to have been a lively, happy child who was loved and accepted by all, all that is except her mother. In what must have been a terrible ordeal Katie’s grandmother told the court that,
That last statement is particularly poignant for me. I recently shared a week with my son visiting my mother in hospital. She has an inoperable cancer. He has autism. The two are not even remotely comparable.
Cancer is no respecter of persons. Even the most perfect can be brought down by it. The idea of a perfect daughter struck down by cancer was manageable for Karen McCarron. But the idea of a perfect daughter made imperfect by the actions of her mother was too much to bear. And Karen McCarron believed that she was guilty of causing Katie’s autism because she allowed Katie to receive her childhood vaccinations. She was influenced in her belief by David Ayoub, a part time radiologist who believes that
He also believes, based on his conversations with Karen McCarron, that,
Whenever I write about autism acceptance I get comments from parents who tell me that it is possible to separate your love for your child from your determination to fight their autism. But the message I get from Dr Ayoub’s remarks is that you measure love by your determination to fight their autism. Instead of separation we get a dangerous confluence.
Karen McCarron felt compelled to cure her daughter’s autism in order to assuage her own guilt. When the cures espoused by Dr Ayoub failed she sought to free Katie from her autism by killing her.
Her inability to love and cherish and find joy in a child who did not meet her requirements for perfection speaks to a profound disorder within Karen McCarron. Her imagined guilt for causing her child’s autism is secondary to this. Her final, desperate act was an attempt to ease her own suffering, not her daughter’s. It was a selfish act. Her plea of insanity has been dismissed. She is guilty of murder in the first degree.
Let us all join in hoping that this decision brings closure to Katie’s family; father Paul, sister Emily and grandparents Mike and Gale. May they find the strength to master their grief at Katie’s death and anger at the manner of her passing. May they find peace and draw comfort from their memories of her joyful life.
Comment by Ms. Clark | January 18th, 2008
If people think you were exaggerating about Karen’s push to “cure” Katie, I think these quotes from an article you linked to make it abundantly clear,
“All of the witnesses who knew Karen McCarron, a former pathologist who graduated from the Southern Illinois School of Medicine in Springfield, said she was a woman obsessed with curing her daughter’s autism and was a perfectionist who would not accept the fact her daughter wasn’t “indistinguishable” from her peers.
“It was embarrassing for her,” said Jennifer McCarron, Katie’s aunt. “She said she didn’t want anyone saying her kid was slow.”
Witnesses have said she constantly criticized her daughter’s progress and the team of family members, therapists, teachers and care providers hired to help her.
They said the topic of every conversation with her revolved around curing Katie’s autism. Negativity and hatefulness were ceaseless when she discussed the child, who they say she never hugged, kissed or praised after she was diagnosed with autism.
“She looked at Katie as a problem, and she got rid of her problem,” Jennifer McCarron testified. “There’s nothing more to it than that.”
Karen’s toxic attitude toward her daughter is worse than appalling. I don’t know what the word is… I hope there are no more mothers or fathers out there with her attitude plus the ability to kill their own child.
Comment by Sharon | January 18th, 2008
This is so sad. I have not read that quote from Ayoub before. (I refuse to use the title Dr before the name of someone who can make such an outrageous statement.) It was shocking to learn in the trial, how the biomedical quack creeds are implicated in this tragedy.
Comment by Joseph | January 18th, 2008
The next time a parent obsessed with curing autism says they truly do love their child despite not accepting the autism, I will no doubt remember Karen McCarron’s claimed love for her daugther. I don’t like to make generalizations, but inevitably that’s what will happen.
Comment by Club 166 | January 18th, 2008
…But the message I get from Dr Ayoub’s remarks is that you measure love by your determination to fight their autism. Instead of separation we get a dangerous confluence. …
Unfortunately, I know far too many parents that feel exactly the same way.
Joe
Comment by ebohlman | January 19th, 2008
I think the word you’re looking for is “depraved.”
Comment by Mike | January 21st, 2008
I can appreciate the strength of feeling this has aroused. But I would respectfully ask people to remember the dignity with which the McCarron family have conducted themselves and to moderate their language.
“Toxic” is not a word I like to see in autism discussions, given its usage by the sort of people who likely encouraged Karen McCarron in her disordered and delusional state. I think depraved just about makes it but I would not like to see words of hate used against her, no matter how hateful her actions have been.
Comment by Jennifer | January 24th, 2008
If “toxic” is not a suitable word, let’s just stick with “criminal” or “felonious”.
I am not a ‘curbie’ mom, and I have profound problems with the ‘curbie’ movement. This case has only fed into my worst fears. You cannot wage war on a disorder without waging war on the child who has it. In this case, little Katie lost the war.
If kind-hearted parents are inclined to to pity Karen, to look for some plausible reason why she did what she did, it can only be to avoid facing true evil.
Karen McCarron was a doctor who, presumably, had more humane methods at her disposal for dispatching little Katie to ‘heaven’ where she would be complete. She could have, at least, given the child enough cough syrup to make the child sleepy. It appears that she suffocated the child while the child was fully awake and aware. This is death by torture, and it is a deliberate, hostile act. She was mad at Katie, and she punished her before she killed her.
Can any of us imagine what went on inside the mind of that little child as she vainly struggled for life agaisnt her own mother? Can we imagine her panic? Her confusion? Her pain?
I bet her mother could. They go over that sort of stuff in medical school. Mom was a pathologist. There is no reason to suspect that she didn’t know how this would feel to her child.
This verdict protects all of our children against the people who would put them down like a rabid dog. Well, that’s not fair. We euthanize dogs much more humanely.
Comment by Paul Wady | February 5th, 2008
A very good reply, above.
As a High Functioning Autistic Adult, I know full well that being cured is the same thing as Fairies/Life after Death and The Loch Ness Monster flies UFO’s.
Its something people believe in because the opposite is just too horrible a reality to bear.
The woman murdered her daughter. Simple. I am sure she had an excuse…
Comment by isles | February 7th, 2008
I only wish it were possible for people like Ayoub to do time for their contributions to this regrettable situation.
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[...] of joy to all who knew her, all that is except her mother. I discussed the reasons for this in my earlier post when Karen was found [...]