CAMDEN PIERCE HUGHES -6 yo (2011) - South Berwick ME

Texas woman appears in NH court in son's death

DENISE LAVOIE, Associated Press, LYNNE TUOHY, Associated Press

Updated 03:25 a.m., Friday, May 20, 2011



A memorial is seen Tuesday, May 17, 2011 in South Berwick, Maine near
where the body of an unidentified boy was found Saturday. Police have
classified the death as suspicious.
Photo: Joel Page

PORTSMOUTH, N.H. (AP) — A Texas woman accused of killing her 6-year-old son and leaving his body on a dirt road in Maine may have come to New England to kill her son and commit suicide, saying the boy is "in heaven" and she wants to go there as soon as possible, her lawyer said Thursday.Julianne McCrery, 42, of Irving, Texas, was ordered held without bail Thursday on second-degree murder charges in New Hampshire, where she made her initial court appearance after waiving extradition earlier in the day from Massachusetts.

She stared at the floor during her appearance in Portsmouth District Court, and she appeared to be crying when she was led from the courtroom.

Hours earlier, a lawyer representing her at a hearing in Massachusetts said that based on conversations with his client that he believes she came to the region with the idea of taking her son's life and committing suicide.

"I believe she was up here to bring both herself and her son to heaven," Murphy said in Concord, Mass. "She told me, 'I love my son very much. I know where he is. He's in heaven. I want to go there as soon as possible.'"

Investigators believe McCrery killed 6-year-old Camden Hughes on Saturday in Hampton, N.H., and then left the body in an isolated area in South Berwick, Maine.

Preliminary autopsy findings showed that the cause of Camden's death was asphyxiation and the manner of death was homicide, according to Maine's chief medical examiner. The homicide remains under investigation.

The boy last attended school in Texas on Friday, May 6. On Monday, May 9, his mother called to report that he was absent because he was ill, and she continued to call this week, saying he was still sick, said Pat Lamb, director of security for the Irving Independent School District.

The last call to the school was Wednesday morning, hours before McCrery was questioned by state police in Massachusetts.

The case drew national attention as the boy went unidentified for days because no one reported him missing. State police in Maine released a computer-generated image showing a boy with blond hair and blue eyes.After the New Hampshire hearing, Senior Assistant Attorney General Susan Morrell said McCrery's family is traveling to New England and will claim the boy's body. She did not say which family members or when they would arrive.

"I think it's just a tragic case. There's not much more I can say right now," said Monica Kaeser, McCrery's public defender in New Hampshire.

McCrery was detained Wednesday at a Massachusetts highway rest stop after police got a tip about her pickup truck, which matched a vehicle spotted near the spot where the boy's body was found covered with a blanket.

Her detention Wednesday set off a rapid-fire chain of events in which the investigation shifted from Maine, where the boy's body was discovered, to Massachusetts, where McCrery was questioned, and finally to New Hampshire, where authorities believe the boy died and the formal charges were ultimately filed.

But McCrery's friend, Shirley Miller of Arlington, Texas, said "Julie" McCrery suffered from mood swings and sometimes would just "up and go" without telling anyone. Last fall, she took her son out of kindergarten and they went to Seattle and Nebraska before returning to Texas where she was living with Miller's adult son.

Miller said McCrery "was up one minute and down the next" but she would never have believed that McCrery would hurt her son.

"I would say she was a caring mother," Miller said. "I don't know why she did this unless she just flipped out."

Court documents and interviews paint a conflicting portrait of a devoted mother who loved her young son but one who also served time in jail.

Texas public records show that McCrery was arrested at least twice on prostitution charges and once for possession with intent to distribute drugs.

On Amazon.com, there's a book for sale by Julie McCrery about how to get a good night's sleep titled: "Good Night, Sleep Tight!"

The biography says McCrery drove a school bus and operated a cement mixer. Her latest job, according to court records in Massachusetts, was as an "auto parts delivery contractor" in Texas.

Her son died Saturday, the same day his body was discovered by a resident in Maine. Investigators believe he died earlier that same day in Hampton, N.H., where a motel room was being treated as a crime scene.

Massachusetts state police questioned her at a rest stop in Chelmsford.

All three locations are with 65 miles of each other.

Shirley Miller said the mood swings and road trips made her question whether McCrery suffered from a serious mental illness, such as bipolar disorder.Murphy, who met with a tearful McCrery in Massachusetts, said she told him that she'd attempted suicide within the past few days and had tried to kill herself several times in 2004.

Back in Texas, Miller said she babysat Camden about two weeks ago and he was wearing the same clothes he had on when his body was found in Maine.

She said the clothes were brand new.

"I'm stuck in that. Why did she leave him beside the road? I cannot get past that. That does not seem like her. I know she probably did it, but I can't get past why," she said.

Lamb described McCrery's son as "a gifted and talented" kindergartner at W.T. Hanes Elementary School in Irving. Grief counselors were on hand to assist children and staff as news of his death spread on 600-student campus, Lamb said.

"He was a really bright student. His teachers described him as a sponge who loved to learn," Lamb said.



http://www.seattlepi.com/news/article/Texas-woman-appears-in-NH-court-in-son-s-death-1384485.php#ixzz1MwIUxf2g

How does a mother explain to her child that his classmate is dead because his own mother murdered him? How is a child to comprehend such evil?

I hope they just explain the little boy is in heaven, and not why.

If she didn't want to live, she should have killed herself, not her precious little boy.

How sad, how sad.

I'll bet it is no coincidence that she committed her evil act of murder outside of Texas. That says to me, she doesn't want to die.

twinkletoes wrote:I'll bet it is no coincidence that she committed her evil act of murder outside of Texas. That says to me, she doesn't want to die.

It says to me that she was just compelled to get away. I don't understand her taking the life of her beautiful son, but IMHO it was not planned when she left Texas. There is a lot of time to think while driving across the country and maybe by the time she reached the coast she knew she couldn't go forward and didn't want to turn back. Four days later she was still only an hour away from where she left her son. Did she go back to the hotel and attempt suicide there? Guess it will all come out eventually.

Hopefully the stories of the thousands of abused and murdered children; the suicides of people of all ages, will make more of us aware of the emotional needs and hurts of those we come in contact with.
Maybe we can help before tragedy strikes. Ya never know.

Coroner says Camden died from asphyxiation

"Texas mother arrested for allegedly killing son, 6, found along South Berwick road
Last modified May 19, 2011, at 5:31 a.m.

BOSTON — A Texas woman whose 6-year-old son was found dead last weekend in Maine stands accused of killing the boy and dumping his body alongside a dirt road where it was discovered, authorities said.

Julianne McCrery, 42, of Irving, Texas, was charged with second-degree murder Wednesday in the death of her son, Camden Hughes. The police apprehension of her earlier in the day set off a rapid-fire chain of events in which jurisdiction shifted from Maine, where the boy’s body was discovered, to Massachusetts, where McCrery was found and questioned, and finally to New Hampshire, where authorities believe the boy died and the formal charges were ultimately filed.

McCrery was due to be arraigned Thursday morning in Concord, Mass., on a charge of being a fugitive from justice stemming from the murder charge, said New Hampshire Attorney General Michael A. Delaney.

Preliminary autopsy findings showed that the cause of Camden’s death was asphyxiation and the manner of death was homicide, according to Maine’s chief medical examiner. The homicide remains under investigation....." (read more)http://new.bangordailynews.com/2011/05/18/news/report-person-in-custody-in-death-of-boy-found-along-south-berwick-road/

Poster's Note: Some things in life just don't make sense, this is so sad.

"When Ian McCrery went to Maine last week with his grandfather to retrieve his little brother’s body, he visited the woman who found Camden Pierce Hughes — lifeless, swaddled in his green “security blanket” and abandoned in the woods near her home.

“I wanted some answers,” McCrery recalled yesterday of his quest to learn as much he could about his brother’s death, allegedly at the hands of their mother, Julianne McCrery, 42, of Irving, Texas. “I hadn’t talked to my mother since the whole thing happened. Any answers I could get — so I contacted them.”

Tomorrow, that woman, Linda Gove, will stand at the altar of the First Baptist Church in Grand Prairie, Texas, where she will help Pastor Bill Skaar officiate the funeral service for 6-year-old Camden.

“She’s just a real kind, loving woman. She was a part in finding my brother. We met (Gove and her husband, Manley), talked to them, and they offered their service,” said McCrery, 23, who is taking leave from his Norfolk, Va., naval base to attend the funeral. “They’re just amazing people.”

Skaar said Linda Gove will assist him in “a very simple, meaningful service for the family” that will include gospel songs and a video tribute to Camden. The boy, a gifted student and devoted churchgoer, loved to play guitar and root for the New England Patriots [team stats] and the Dallas Cowboys, relatives recall.

The Goves did not return phone messages yesterday. But at a May 18 vigil for the towheaded boy known as “the blue-eyed angel,” the couple told of how they were willing to claim the body of the child mysteriously left on their property — if his family didn’t — and bury him nearby.

“Camden deserved the right to be loved,” Linda Gove told the crowd in First Parish Federated Church in South Berwick, Maine. “And maybe his life ended in such a tragic way, but you can see here he is very loved by all of you being here tonight.”

In fact, the boy was “the greatest thing that ever happened in my life,” said Ian McCrery, who will be among the pallbearers. “I loved him more than anything.”

His brother’s service will be the first funeral McCreary has ever attended, and he said he hoped to “send him off in a good way. . . . I think the whole world will get to see it.”

Perhaps even his mom, he said, expressing hope the service could ease her deeply troubled soul.

“I love her. We’ve been trying to contact her as best we can, but it seems extremely hard. I’m in her corner. What she did was horrible. But it doesn’t change the fact that it’s my mom. I have to come to terms. I have forgiven her. I think it would put her a little bit at ease. She was in her own personal hell. I’m with her.”
http://news.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view/2011_0527slain_boys_bro_mom_forgiven/

Police honor citizens who helped solve Camden Hughes case

June 09, 2011

AUGUSTA, Maine — A woman who made a mental image of a stranger’s pickup truck and a truck driver who spotted the vehicle after memorizing its description were honored Thursday by Maine State Police, who credited the two for helping to solve a mystery over the identity of a little boy whose body was found in a rural home’s driveway.

But more than receiving Special Awards of Commendation, Lisa Gove and Steve Scipione were credited for giving the slain boy, Camden Hughes, his name back.

The body of 6-year-old Camden was discovered May 14 under a blanket in a driveway in South Berwick in southern Maine by Linda Gove.

Authorities reached out to the public for clues to the identity of the curly-haired, blue-eyed boy, who remained unidentified for days. The first clue was provided by Gove, of North Berwick. Before the body was found, she had noticed the truck in her mother-in-law’s driveway and made a mental picture of it.

“Usually I try to pay attention to my surroundings,” Gove said after the award presentation. Police said she provided a detailed description, including the make and model of the pickup and even the wording of a Navy-related frame and insignia around the license plate.

Police publicized the description and Scipione, a truck driver whose routes take him throughout New England, made a mental note of the pickup’s description, including the Navy plate frame. Five days after Camden’s body was discovered, Scipione pulled his rig into a rest area along Interstate 495 in Chelmsford, Mass. He spotted the truck that had been the subject of a nationwide search.

“I was watching the news all the time,” Scipione said Thursday. “As soon as I pulled in and saw a blue truck, I glanced down and saw a Navy insignia. I thought that could have been it.”

Scipione called 911 and said police arrived within 5 to 10 minutes.

They arrested the woman in the pickup, who turned out to be the dead boy’s mother, 42-year-old Julianne McCrery.

State police also had circulated a computer-aided photo of the child and a picture of his shoes. Christian von Atzigen of Irving, Texas, called Maine State Police after he recognized the boy as Camden Pierce Hughes. Von Atzigen said he and his wife had been friends with McCrery for 15 years.

McCrery, also of Irving, is being held without bail on a second-degree murder charge in New Hampshire. She’s charged with killing her son in Hampton, N.H., on May 14 and dumping his body about 20 miles away in South Berwick. Preliminary autopsy findings show he died of asphyxiation.

Thursday’s ceremony, in which numerous police officers and citizens were honored for their actions in other cases, emphasized the assistance given by Gove and Scipione. Maine Gov. Paul LePage attended the event.

“The actions of these two involved citizens helped solve a New England mystery and gave a little boy back his name,” state police said in presenting the recognition.

Gove said all of the attention was “a little intimidating.” “I don’t like a lot of attention,” she said, “but I feel like I did what I should do.”

State police named Trooper Tom Pappas, who patrols in the Androscoggin County area and has been active in a number of drug investigations, as its Trooper of the Year.


http://bangordailynews.com/2011/06/09/news/officers-who-assisted-in-camden-hughes-investigation-to-be-honored/?ref=latest

As a Texas woman awaits possible indictment on charges she allegedly
asphyxiated her 6-year-old son in a Hampton motel, new details have been
released about the days leading to her arrest last month.



A heavily redacted version of the arrest affidavit for Julianne
McCrery, 42, of Irving, Texas, has been released, and police allege in
the document that McCrery said she knew "police were looking for her"
when they located her in the Bay State on May 18.

Not much new information has been released, but the document does
outline police activity starting from the morning of May 14, which is
when 6-year-old Camden Hughes' body was discovered in a wooded area of
Maine, to McCrery's arrest on May 18 on two counts of second-degree
murder.

McCrery was located at a truck stop in Chelmsford, Mass., on the
morning of May 18 after another motorist at the stop noticed a woman in a
truck matching the description of the vehicle seen in the South
Berwick, Maine, woods on May 14.

The affidavit states Massachusetts State Police then approached the
truck -- a blue Toyota Tacoma, which had a "U.S. Navy Mom" license plate
frame -- at the rest area as its driver was "getting out of her truck."

State Trooper Sharon Basteri introduced herself and asked the woman,
whom police hadn't yet positively identified as McCrery, "how she was,"
to which the woman replied that she was "fine," according to the
document.

Basteri then informed the woman, according to the affidavit, that her
car "matched the description of a car that may have been involved 'in
something up in Maine.'"

The following paragraph of the affidavit is redacted, although the
next legible portion states that the woman identified herself as
"Julianne Hughes McCrery." The several paragraphs that follow are also
redacted, although the affidavit later states McCrery was brought into
custody.

Camden Hughes is not mentioned once in the redacted version of the affidavit.

McCrery was arraigned in Massachusetts on a fugitive from justice
charge on May 19 before being transported on the same day to Portsmouth
District Court to face two alternating second-degree murder charges.

One count theorizes that McCrery knowingly murdered Camden, while the other theorizes that she acted recklessly.

The Stone Gable Inn, located on Lafayette Road in Hampton, has been
at the center of the New Hampshire portion of the investigation, and is
believed to be where McCrery killed her son.

McCrery has been held without bail in the Strafford County House of
Corrections since May 27, a day after she waived a probable cause
hearing in Hampton District Court.

McCrery was originally held in Rockingham County following her New
Hampshire arraignment, although she was transferred to Strafford due to
Rockingham's limited female holding facilities.

The case has been bound over to Rockingham County Superior Court for
possible indictment by grand jury. Senior Assistant Attorney General
Susan Morrell has told Patch not to expect an indictment or new
developments in the case anytime soon.

The arrest affidavit was unsealed by Rockingham Superior Court
after the Union Leader filed a motion to do so. Rockingham Superior
Court will hold a hearing on Aug. 3 to determine whether the full
documents will become public, according to court staff.

http://hampton-northhampton.patch.com/articles/arrest-affidavit-sheds-new-details-on-child-murder-case

Texas mom to plead guilty in death of son in NH

LYNNE TUOHY 0
Published: September 28, 2011

CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — A Texas woman accused of killing her 6-year-old son in New Hampshire and disposing of his body in rural Maine will plead guilty to killing him, court officials said.

Forty-two-year-old Julianne McCrery will plead guilty to second-degree murder in the death of her son, Camden Hughes.
Her lawyers did not immediately return messages left by The Associated Press. McCrery pleaded not guilty in May and has since waived all other court appearances.
A Rockingham Superior Court clerk confirmed McCrery has filed a notice of intent to plead guilty and will be sentenced to 45 years to life in prison. No date has been set for her to formally enter her plea.
The discovery of Camden's body under a blanket on a dirt road in South Berwick, Maine, on May 14 launched a nationwide effort to identify him. Even as that effort was under way, McCrery called his Irving, Texas, elementary school daily to report him absent.
Camden died of asphyxiation, according to a medical examiner. He and his mother had stayed in a New Hampshire motel the weekend his body was discovered.
Texas public records show that McCrery was arrested at least twice on prostitution charges and once for possession with intent to distribute drugs. In 2009, she was sentenced to one year in prison for a misdemeanor conviction of prostitution. In 2004, she was sentenced to three years of probation for a felony conviction of possession of a controlled substance.
Law enforcement authorities and friends have portrayed McCrery as a loving but troubled mother whose mood swings often prompted her to take lengthy road trips. It was on one of those trips, New Hampshire prosecutors say, that McCrery killed her son at a Hampton, N.H., motel. His body was found just over the border in Maine.
McCrery was arrested at a Chelmsford, Mass., rest stop on May 17 after being spotted by a trucker.
A lawyer who represented her at a brief court appearance in Massachusetts has said he got the impression from McCrery that her intent was to take her son's life and then kill herself.
"I believe she was there to bring both herself and her son to heaven," attorney George Murphy said in May. "She told me, 'I love my son very much. I know where he is. He's in heaven, and I want to go there as soon as possible.'"
McCrery's mother, LuRae McCrery, said she did not know her daughter was going to enter a guilty plea. She said they last spoke about a week ago and that her daughter has sounded "real depressed" in their last few phone conversations.
"I definitely think she needs some help," said LuRae McCrery of Curtis, Neb.
She said she's also certain her daughter planned to kill herself as well.
"She regrets that Camden's gone. I think she regrets not completing the act," McCrery said. "I've lost them both, as far as I'm concerned."
Shirley Miller, a close family friend, said Wednesday that she was still grappling with the death of the boy who called her "Grandma Shirley."
"We go to the store and see something we want to buy Camden," Miller said. "It's a sad time."
Miller said McCrery was a good mother and that only enhanced the shock she felt at news of the boy's killing.
"I still haven't brought myself to writing her yet," Miller said. "I liked her so well in one sense, but I hate her actions."


Read more: http://newsok.com/texas-mom-to-plead-guilty-in-death-of-son-in-nh/article/feed/301467#ixzz1ZLbNDAk0

Plea date set for Julianne McCrery

By Associated Press
Tuesday, October 4, 2011

BRENTWOOD, N.H. — The Texas woman who has agreed to plead guilty to killing her 6-year-old son in New Hampshire and leaving his body on a remote Maine road will enter her plea next month.

Officials at Rockingham Superior Court say 42-year-old Julianne McCrery’s plea hearing is scheduled for Nov. 4. Sentencing is scheduled for Jan. 13.

The Irving, Texas woman agreed to plead guilty Sept. 23 to second degree murder for the slaying of her son, Camden Hughes. He died of asphyxiation. McCrery was captured in Massachusetts.

Prosecutors tell Foster’s Daily Democrat the plea hearing will ensure that McCrery has made her decision willfully, and that she is aware of the rights she is waiving with her plea, including the right to a jury trial and the right to call witnesses.

McCrery faces a 45-year sentence.

http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view/20111004plea_date_set_for_julianne_mccrery/srvc=home&position=recent

McCrery pleads guilty to killing 6-year-old son

Saturday, November 5, 2011


BRENTWOOD — As expected, Julianne McCrery pleaded guilty Friday morning to a felony charge of second-degree murder in the death of her six-year-old son, Camden Pierce Hughes.

She smothered the boy on May 14 at a Hampton motel and left his body in a wooded area in South Berwick, Maine, alongside a dirt driveway.

McCrery, 42, of Irving, Texas, made the plea in front of Superior Court Judge Tina Nadeau Friday morning in Rockingham County Superior Court resulting in a 45-years-to-life sentence. The hearing on the sentencing will be in January.

Senior Assistant Attorney General Susan Morrell said in court today, "There was no one else in her family she believed was fit to raise him if she were dead and she did not think he should be raised by social services"

Morrell also told Judge Nadeau that investigators believe, after speaking with acquaintances of McCrery in Texas, that she felt "inconvenienced" by having Camden in her life and that she intended to return to Texas without the boy. Morrell declined to elaborate on that theory after court.

The case captivated the region and the nation after the little blond boy's body was discovered abandoned in South Berwick. Authorities released his photos nationwide in the hope someone would come forward to claim him.

Before McCrery pleaded guilty to the charge, New Hampshire Assistant Attorney General Susan Morrill, the case prosecutor, read a summary review of the case that would have been presented against McCrery at a trial. That review included the finding of the body of McCrery's son in a wooded area in South Berwick on May 14 and the subsequent investigation of the death by the Maine Medical Examiner.

The review also included the police investigation by Maine State Police and then, after four days, the discovery of McCrery by Massachusetts State Police who had been alerted to a suspicious vehicle at a rest stop on the Massachusetts Turnpike in the town of Chelmsford. McCrery's vehicle was similar to the description of the vehicle police were seeking that was seen on Dennett Road in South Berwick by the couple who found Camden's body.

During a conversation with Mass. State Police, McCrery told them that the boy they found in South Berwick was her son and that she had put him there. She also told troopers she was trying to kill herself with castor beans she had purchased in Maine and consumed recently. McCrery also told police she had tried to slice her right wrist, but stopped when the knife made a superficial wound. McCrery also said she was planning to hang herself if the castor beans didn't work and that she had a noose in her trunk.

She was apprised of her Miranda Rights and ultimately arrested and transported to a Massachusetts State Police headquarters.



While in custody, according to Morrill, McCrery agreed to a recorded interview with police. Within this conversation, McCrery detailed her and Camden's journey from Texas to Maine, and the subsequent actions that led to Camden's death and her arrest. McCrery said she had tried in the past to kill herself using castor beans, but had failed because she only swallowed them, not chewed them. McCrery said her plan was to purchase the castor beans in Maine, since she discovered they weren't sold in Texas anymore, chew them and kill herself. She said she ultimately decided to kill Camden because she didn't think anyone in her family was fit enough to care for him like she would be able to.

On May 12, she drove through Maine and bought the beans and took some. Throughout her and Camden's journey across the country, McCrery told police she had been calling Camden's school and reporting him absent with appendicitis.

On May 13, McCrery said she spent the day with Camden on the beach, before looking for a hotel for the two of them to spend the night.

In the early morning hours of May 14, McCrery told State Police she began to feel some of the effects of the castor beans. She said she gave Camden Nyquil because she didn't want him to be lucid during the incident. Then, McCrery took all of the pillows in the room, laid them on the floor, picked up Camden and placed him face down on the pillows, leaving her hand on his mouth. McCrery then said she proceeded to lay on top of him, suffocating him into the pillows. McCrery said that Camden struggled and flailed his arms for about three to four minutes before becoming lifeless. Then, shortly before dawn, McCrery put Camden's body into the car seat in her blue Toyota Tacoma, placed a blanket on top of it and began driving.

According to Morrill, the Maine Medical Examiner, in a post-mortem autopsy, discovered red spots covering Camden's face, including underneath and on top of his eye lids. There was also hemorrhaging around his eyes and mouth, as well as a cut on his nose. The autopsy also revealed a contusion on one of his lungs, as well as brain swelling.

The Maine Medical Examiner determined, because of these injuries, that Camden was smothered through the type of asphyxiation consistent with how McCrery described killing him. The Examiner also determined that the brain swelling developed in the minutes before death and that Camden suffered before dying, as was initially indicated through his struggling described by McCrery.

After the killing, McCrery said she drove around for a while and ultimately drove onto Route 4 in Maine, though she thought she was in New Hampshire. She told police she put his body on the side of the driveway and saw at least two cars. The driver of one of those vehicles ultimately gave authorities a description of McCrery's pickup truck.

According to Morrill, a felony charge of second-degree murder is appropriate for McCrery because the prosecution believes McCrery had no intention of going through with the act of killing herself and traveled to Maine with the sole purpose of killing Camden. According to the prosecution, McCrery had told her trailer park that she would be returning home. It was also discovered in the investigation she was texting her boyfriend before State Police arrested her at the rest stop.

Judge Nadeau then went through a routine at the beginning and before the plea agreement asking McCrery questions as to her understanding of the hearing and the subsequent prison term consequences of the plea. McCrery said she understood and confirmed she had discussed everything with her attorney. McCrery informed the judge she was on two new medications that she had been prescribed in prison; one was to treat depression and help her sleep and one was an anti-anxiety medication. However, she said neither of the medications were affecting the plea she was entering that morning.

Then, Nadeau read the felony charge against McCrery and asked her how she was pleading.

"Guilty," said McCrery, with her head down.

McCrery will appear in court again on the Jan. 14, 2012 for her sentencing hearing.

http://www.fosters.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20111105/GJNEWS_01/111109752/-1/FOSNEWS

'He Did Nothing To Deserve It,' Mom Says Of Son She Killed

Julianne McCrery Sentenced In New Hampshire

POSTED: 6:50 am EST January 13, 2012
UPDATED: 1:05 pm EST January 13, 2012

BRENTWOOD, N.H. -- The Texas woman who admitted suffocating her 6-year-old son in a New Hampshire motel room last year, leaving his body on a dirt road in Maine, told a New Hampshire judge at her sentencing Friday that her sorrow is "intense and unbearable," and she was "sorry to have caused intense pain and suffering to my precious son."
"It was my intention to join him in God's Kingdom," a tearful Julianne McCrery told the court. "He did nothing whatsoever to deserve that by my hand, and he was not an inconvenience to me."
Prosecutor Susan Morrell asserted that McCrery killed her son because he had become an inconvenience to her, something McCrery denied.
"My grief has been excruciating, the pain exquisite, and the process continual," she said.
McCrery, 42, was sentenced to 45 years in prison in Rockingham District Court on Friday for killing her son, Camden Hughes, in a hotel room last May, holding his face down in a pillow until he no longer moved.

McCreary pleaded guilty in November to kneeling atop the child and covering his mouth with her hand as he struggled to survive. Shackled in the courtroom, she apologized for the murder.
"My sweet boy joy was awesome," she said, crying. "The void is constant and continuous, for as long as I breathe."
The discovery of Camden's body set off a nationwide effort to identify him.
McCrery's family members -- including a son on leave from the Navy -- attended the sentencing. Ian McCrery spoke before his mother was sentenced.
"I still love you mom -- you've always been a great mother," he told her. "We all miss my brother. He's up in heaven now. I talk with him a lot. I have forgiven you."
The motive for the murder escapes her closest family members.
"If she was going to kill herself, she would kill herself," her mother, LuRae McCrery, said. "I would like to have closure but I don't think I ever will. Every waking moment I think of Camden and Julie."
McCrery had a record of prostitution and drug offenses in Texas. On May 14 a New Hampshire woman noticed Mcrery's truck by the side of a road and later discovered the boy's body. McCrery was arrested four days later at a Massachusetts highway rest stop after a nationwide search.
McCrery's lawyer, Defense attorney Julia Nye, said she considered an insanity plea, but McCrery would not approve it, saying she wanted to take responsibility for her actions.
Upon imposing the 45-year sentence, Superior Court Judge Tina Nadeau said, "There's nothing I can say here that will lessen the devastation."

Read more: http://www.thebostonchannel.com/news/30204041/detail.html#ixzz1jN8SKtDy