Mouthy Mom`s Ex-Husband Testifies about Her Behavior
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ... the real Raymond Winfield. It was all about him. He was just cold-blooded.</s>JANE VELEZ-MITCHELL, HOST: Trending tonight. More shocking developments in the big brawl between Jay-Z and Beyonce`s little sister, Solange. We`re going to tell you what may have made Solange so fighting mad. Plus, the live-in girlfriend of a dead cop claims he accidentally shot and killed himself when they were tussling. So why on earth did she go on the run, lawyer up and still to this moment refuses to talk to cops? And Dean McDermott spills his guts about why he cheated, blaming his wife, Tori Spelling. You won`t believe what the couple said about their sex life. But first, a jaw-dropping day in the Mouthy Mom courtroom, as killer mom, Julie Schenecker`s, now ex-husband takes the stand, testifying his two teenage kids begged him to protect them from their own mother. The very soccer mom who eventually executed them. Did these kids sense what was coming? Good evening. I`m Jane Velez-Mitchell, coming to you live. Thanks for joining me.</s>COL. PARKER SCHENECKER, FATHER OF VICTIMS: They`ve asked for protection from their mother.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Sane people don`t shoot and kill their children.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She raises the gun up. Bam! Shoots her in the back of the head.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Her daughter and her son.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What happened yesterday?</s>JULIE SCHENECKER, MURDER SUSPECT: Um, I don`t know.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Calyx, she gets it first, bam, the sassy mouth as the defendant calls it. You may think she looks crazy. What she did and why she did it. "Calyx drove me to drink."</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How much alcohol did you have about?</s>J. SCHENECKER: Three or four glasses.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The children are dead at the hands of their own mother.</s>VELEZ-MITCHELL: Julie Schenecker is charged with two counts of first- degree murder. Cops say she planned the murder of her own two gorgeous teenaged children, 13-year-old Beau and 16-year-old Calyx, buying a gun and then shooting them both in the head and then additionally in the mouth because they were, quote, too mouthy and sassy. Well, today, Julie`s now ex-husband, Parker Schenecker, testified about how he tried to protect his kids from this monster mom who would eventually shoot them. Listen to him read an e-mail that he wrote to his wife just a couple of months before she killed their kids.</s>P. SCHENECKER: "We will forge a way ahead with or without your participation. The kids are saying that there`s not much change in you, and although I try hard to temper their expectations" -- in parentheses -- "(as no one can completely change overnight or in a two-week period)" -- closed parentheses -- "they expected that you`d at least be participative. What they do see is their mom in bed all day, and in their mind, she`s choosing to do that instead of being involved in their lives. It`s cut and dry with them. The kids have asked me to preclude you from driving them anymore. The kids are asking this of me because they still don`t feel safe with you driving. Not because they`re mad at you. I MUST" -- in all caps -- "protect them. They are telling me that they feel unsafe. There is no way in the world that I can just let this go. They`ve asked their father for protection." In parentheses, "(The hard part of this, is that they have asked for protection from their mother)" -- closed parentheses.</s>VELEZ-MITCHELL: Now, the defense argues the stay-at-home soccer mom is insane and therefore not responsible for this evil, horrible deed. But does this e-mail reveal a rational motive for murder? Did she feel betrayed by her kids for complaining about her? Plus, we learned she was furious at her husband for sending her to rehab and thought he`d divorce her. Is this simply a woman who feels double crossed by her kids and her husband and wants revenge? What do you think? Call me: 1-877-JVM-SAYS, 1-877-586-7297. We have a feisty Lion`s Den debate panel ready to hash it out. But first straight out to HLN producer Alexis Weed. Alexis, you were in court today. There is breaking news to report. Bring us up to date.</s>ALEXIS WEED, HLN PRODUCER: Jane, huge news. The defense rested their case today, and it was a particularly emotional day. We had Parker Schenecker on the stand for most of today. He was the second-to-last witness. And Parker Schenecker detailed the entire relationship that he had with Julie Schenecker. And you`ve got to ask -- you`ve got to wonder, how many points the defense really scored by putting him up on the stand. It looked as if Julie Schenecker really emerged as someone who was really capable of lying in order to avoid paying for -- paying consequences of her actions.</s>VELEZ-MITCHELL: Now, he has been described, Alexis, as unemotional. He is a military man. And indeed, he was serving our country when his wife was back in Florida killing their kids. Did you sense any kind of emotion today? In other words, he has control over his emotions. But did you sense a point where it just looked like he couldn`t keep it contained anymore, despite being a former colonel, a retired colonel?</s>WEED: Well, I`ll tell you, the emotions came through the e-mails that were read, that were between Parker Schenecker and his wife before the killings. The e-mail showed that Parker Schenecker was making great efforts in order to try and save the marriage, save their family, and really, outlined these e-mails that he was able to read portions of in court showed that he was seeking treatment. He wanted family counseling. He was trying to make the family better. So despite how stoic he might be on the stand and how reserved he might be, he really was able to read through these e-mails and show what kind of guy he was, what kind of family guy he was.</s>VELEZ-MITCHELL: Yes. We`ve got some of the e-mails right now that we`re going to tell you about. In the months leading up to the killings, Julie`s behavior was getting more and more out of control. We`ve already heard testimony that she had a car accident, allegedly while under the influence. She slapped her daughter, Calyx, and cops actually showed up, but they didn`t go through an arrest. I wish they had had. Julie Schenecker`s husband, Parker, now divorced, testified that he was at his wits end, and he describes as you just heard, an e-mail he sent to his wife`s family. Listen.</s>P. SCHENECKER: And I had said that -- I think I asked, "Have any of you ever lived with a 50-year-old who has the judgment of a 10-year-old?"</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Your perception at that time is she`s low- functioning.</s>P. SCHENECKER: That was my perception, yes, ma`am.</s>VELEZ-MITCHELL: Parker is trying to clean up his wife`s messes. But -- and I want to throw this to Dr. Judy Ho, forensic psychologist. Is that another way of saying, despite his good intentions, he`s enabling his wife? I want to go back out to the Lion`s Den. Could Parker have been in a codependent relationship with Julie, and thereby providing some kind of safety net that allowed her to continue to deteriorate and get worse and worse?</s>DR. JUDY HO, FORENSIC PSYCHOLOGIST: That`s a great question, Jane. I think loved ones of people who are mentally ill often deal with this discrepancy. So how do they provide the support that their loved one needs but not go overboard and actually end up enabling their illness so they never get better. But do you really walk away from that situation? Would that actually be solving the problem or are you just leaving them out to dry? I think Parker has really had a really difficult time with this, as you can tell, with his e-mails. He`s trying to put the boundaries down, but then he can`t, because she`s so needy. And then he tries to take things away from her, because she can`t be responsible for them. But then he`s not really putting all the support in place so that he`s not the one having to solve her mental illness problems. And so I think that`s where things started to crumble, is because he started to deny how sick she actually was.</s>VELEZ-MITCHELL: Sick or just a really bad person? I want to go to Anna Quincoces, star of "Real Housewives of Miami," also an attorney. Anna, the big debate of this entire trial is, is she, A, just a drug addict and an alcoholic? And we`ll document that in a second. She had a huge drinking and -- problem and also abused prescription drugs. Or is she completely insane, and therefore not responsible at all? Or behind door No. 3, is she just an evil person who had a hatred of her kids, and there is evil in this world?</s>ANA QUINCOCES, REALITY TV STAR, "REAL HOUSEWIVES OF MIAMI": I`m going to say a little bit of both. I think that, you know, they define insanity -- and an insanity defense is not as commonly used as people think it is. It`s really more a battle of the experts than anything else. I think you can be evil and insane. I think that it`s hard not to know right from wrong when you`re putting a gun in your child`s mouth. But the impetus to pull the trigger, you have to be pretty messed up to do that. So I think there`s a little bit of both. As far as what the -- and I want to make a point about what the other guest was saying about Parker. And I think the fact that Parker was a military man, there is this sense -- my brother is in the military. And a colonel. You know, that Parker was. This whole sense of doing the right thing and standing by the family, you know, I don`t believe that he was planning to divorce her, necessarily. I believe that he was trying to do right by his children, right by his wife, and basically suck it up, even though she was either crazy, evil or combination of the two. And, you know, I think that`s -- that`s what we got from today`s testimony.</s>VELEZ-MITCHELL: Well, Dmitri Lucas, let me jump in with this, pop culture expert. Because as a person in recovery from alcoholism with 19 years of sobriety, I do know a lot about enabling. In other words, somebody who is there, like you said, this good guy, this colonel, there to help his wife, no matter what. Isn`t that classic codependency? Doesn`t that enable the person to really get out of control, because they`ve got that invisible safety net that`s going to catch them, no matter what? Perhaps if he had said, "Honey, you`re on your own. I`m divorcing you. I don`t care if you`re a nut job, a boozer, a drugger, bipolar or what, I`m out of here." She might have been off somewhere in some gutter somewhere, but these kids wouldn`t be dead.</s>DEMETRIA LUCAS, POP CULTURE EXPERT: Well, I think if he totally bailed on the situation and taken responsibility for the children, would they probably be here now? Absolutely. But I think we`re looking at this in hindsight, which is always 20/20. But I think in the moment, you`re talking about his wife; you`re talking about the mother of his children. He wants to make the best decision possible. I think he probably did what he felt was best at the time. I don`t think, by any means, he meant to be an enabler to the situation.</s>VELEZ-MITCHELL: Dhani Jones.</s>DHANI JONES, HOST, SPIKE TV`S "PLAYBOOK 360": He did what anything`s possible? He said he was at his wits end. What do you think the kids were at? I mean, this woman is crazy! Who in their right mind would ever take a gun to their own children? You know? She was -- she was -- who also -- might also be said to say she`s evil, she`s crazy, and the alcohol and the rest of the things that she took enabled her to be even that much more sinister, and that much more crazy. I mean, when I sit and look at it, I mean...</s>VELEZ-MITCHELL: Go ahead.</s>JONES: No. Just the fact that the way that I look at it, she`s crazy. And she`s evil. Point blank, she needs to go away for -- for forever.</s>VELEZ-MITCHELL: I understand what you`re saying. Yes. That`s what one of the defense psychologists said. Anybody who kills their kid has to be crazy. So we`re going to give everybody who kills their kid a pass? Saying you can`t do something like that unless you`re crazy? What about a cousin? If you kill your cousin, do you have to be crazy? What about a distant relative? Where does it end WHEN we open that Pandora`s box and say, "Oh, you have to be crazy to kill your kids"? Why should this woman get a pass and spend the rest of her life in a psychiatric hospital instead of behind a prison wall? We`re just getting started. And you won`t believe what this nightmare of a soccer mom was doing on the gambling front, destroying her family`s finances as her husband was serving overseas. Later, Twitter exploding over this Jay-Z attack in an elevator by Beyonce`s little sister. Is this just the tip of the iceberg in a very nasty family feud? But next, more from this huge day in the so-called "Shaky Mom" trial.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Were you active in her medical treatment?</s>P. SCHENECKER: No, ma`am.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK. Were you aware of any kind of medications that she was taking?</s>P. SCHENECKER: Yes, ma`am, I knew she was taking some meds. But I did not monitor them.