Lethal Guardian (17 page)

The superior court might have been the Carpenters’ best bet at this point. For one, Buzz and Kim didn’t have the money to pay for costs incurred if the case went to the superior court; they would have to rely on public defenders, who were generally inundated with cases. Two, it would send a message to everyone involved that the Carpenters weren’t going anywhere. They were taking this custody issue as far as they could.

Although they weren’t wealthy by any means, the Carpenters could acquire funding for such a battle if they needed to. They owned a home. They had pensions. They had a savings account. Maybe this was the only way they could really get through to Kim that they were serious. Once the supreme court had heard their case, there was no way they would be denied—at the least—scheduled visitations.

From the time Haiman Clein and Beth Ann began working together after Clein’s memo, it was obvious to Clein the memo had had little impact on Beth Ann. Rebecca was still a steady topic of conversation whenever she and Clein were together.

“The Rebecca discussions,” Clein recalled later, “borderlined on hourly. I would say daily—but more than daily! And it wasn’t just with me.”

In fact, things got worse, not better. Once Cloutier became involved, Beth Ann became even more obsessed with knowing what was going on. She would phone home and ask questions. She would call Joseph Jebran and tell him about what she learned. When she would sit down with Clein to go over work-related issues, she was either off somewhere else in thought, or just not interested in anything besides Rebecca.

Instead of disciplining her, however, Clein decided to begin working with her on a supervisory level. For the most part, Beth Ann handled real estate closings, divorce proceedings and personal injury claims, and she met with clients. Clein figured he could help her out and keep an eye on her at the same time.

Looking at Beth Ann, an attractive twenty-nine-year-old law school grad with a sexy smile and shoulder-length red hair, it wasn’t a hard decision for Clein to make. He had already had numerous affairs on Bonnie by this point. Who was to say Beth Ann wouldn’t be interested?

So he decided to begin listening to her problems.

Within just a few weeks of listening to countless stories of abuse and mistreatment, Clein made a suggestion one day. They were sitting around the office, going through some work, and Clein told Beth Ann that he would talk to Bonnie and, with her blessing, take temporary custody of Rebecca. He had four kids at home himself. Why not take Rebecca and, in turn, help move the matter along? The sooner he cleared things up with Rebecca, the sooner he had his employee back, working at peak efficiency.

It was a noble gesture—but one that many agreed later was more likely based on malevolence than dignity.

Based on the conversations Clein and Beth Ann began to have, the picture he began developing of Buzz was of a man who was not capable of taking care of a cat, much less a small child with health problems. As Beth Ann had been saying to just about everyone right along, she also told Clein that Buzz was abusing Rebecca. He and Kim were living in deplorable conditions. Buzz was hot-headed and incapable of providing for a family; he was a very dangerous person for Rebecca to be around. Although he had never met Buzz, Clein had no reason to believe that anything Beth Ann was saying wasn’t true.

One day, shortly before an upcoming court date to discuss visitations, Buzz walked into Clein’s New London office. Suddenly the infamous “abuser” he had been hearing so much about for the past two months was standing in front of Clein.

“He came in demanding a file,” Clein recalled later. “A file that she had from the probate proceeding…. Beth Ann either didn’t have it at the moment or didn’t want to give it to him.”

Buzz was “animated,” Clein remembered. Very demanding. He wanted that file and wasn’t going to take no for an answer.

“Where is it?” Buzz barked at Beth Ann.

“It’s not here at the moment. It’s not available!”

Clein, standing there looking at the two of them, said, “We’ll see that it gets to your attorney.”

With that, Buzz left without saying anything more.

Be it the pressure that Thomas Cloutier was beginning to put on them, or the fact that Buzz and Kim wanted to work things out, they began letting Rebecca see the Carpenters on occasion—but only in public places. Since Buzz and Kim had stopped visitations, Beth Ann and the Carpenters had been calling every day, sometimes three and four times a day to speak with Rebecca. They would even go to Kim’s work, Kim later claimed, and harass her there.

One afternoon, in front of Rebecca, Dick exploded. “You whore!” he screamed.

Other times, they’d meet at a local McDonald’s. But it always seemed to turn into a fiasco, with Kim and Buzz leaving in a rush. There was one instance, Kim later said, when Cynthia pulled Rebecca in close and said, “You’ll be coming home soon.”

It was the wrong thing to say to an already confused and conflicted child. Any adult could have surmised that. What was odd was that Cynthia held two master’s degrees, one of which was in psychology. Why would she do such a thing?

At best, the entire ordeal was disconcerting and was likely to blow up in somebody’s face somewhere down the road. No one, it seemed, was interested in compromising for the sake of Rebecca. At worse, things had already escalated to a point from which there was perhaps no return. Sooner or later, something—or someone—was going to snap. No matter where Buzz and the Carpenters met, they couldn’t get together without some sort of argument or confrontation.

With Kim three months pregnant and the custody battle for Rebecca at the forefront of daily life for both families, on January 17, 1993, a rather brisk and dry winter day, Buzz and Kim, joined by family and friends, got married.

The ceremony was held at the Clinton house in Old Lyme. Buzz and Kim had enough class to invite Beth Ann, Richard, Dick and Cynthia, all the while thinking they would probably skip the event.

Shockingly, though, Beth Ann and Cynthia showed up, but Dick and Richard refused.

Later, many said the only reason Cynthia and Beth Ann attended was to see Rebecca—and, with all that was going on at the time, it wasn’t such a stretch to believe that there might have been some truth to that assumption. They hadn’t spent any real quality time with Rebecca since fall 1992. And ever since the alleged Joseph Jebran sexual abuse incident a month ago, they really hadn’t seen her at all.

Buzz had a smile, Dee later said, “that could light up a room” the moment he entered. He didn’t need snazzy clothes, expensive jewelry, or slick shoes to accentuate his striking presence. Buzz could turn heads just by wearing a T-shirt and a pair of whitewashed jeans. Yet, on his wedding day, Buzz went all out. He donned a silky white tuxedo with a ruby red cummerbund and bow tie to match and had gotten his hair cut short. He smiled with confidence at every opportunity as he made his way through the house, greeting guests after he and Kim had taken their vows.

“It was hard not to like Buzz Clinton,” an old friend said later. “There was just something about him.”

Kim, noticeably pregnant, her stomach protruding out from a full, body-length knitted white gown Dee’s mother had made for Dee many years before, was beaming with happiness as if she hadn’t a care in the world. She seemed to be able to put aside any animosity she harbored and let the day, with all its happiness and grace, unfold at will. After all, no matter what anybody had said about Kim or Buzz, today was their day.

Kim wore her hair pulled back and tied up in a pink bow and a white carnation with red and white baby’s breath pinned to her right side that only accentuated her hair’s glowing beauty. In one photo, Kim was smiling openmouthed, holding a camera-shy Rebecca up to her chest, while the child, in one of her signature moments, chewed on her fingers. Mother and daughter were happy.

Rebecca had been dressed like a princess: a Valentine’s Day–red blouse with a white bow pinned to the front, cotton white undergarments and Shirley Temple–like black shoes. Her reddish blond hair—like her mother’s—sparkled like gold dust as Buzz’s relatives bugged her to pose for photos.

The Clinton family adored Rebecca. They agreed the child made Buzz a better person—or, rather, a person who wanted to do better.

As Beth Ann and Cynthia made their way through the reception, they failed to socialize with other guests. Instead, they followed Rebecca around the house as if it were the last time they were ever going to see her. They brought no gift or card, and they refused to eat.

While Kim and Buzz celebrated the first days of their marriage and prepared for the birth of their first child, attorney Thomas Cloutier worked doggedly on the Carpenters’ case.

On January 19, only two days after the wedding, Thomas Cloutier filed several complaints with the New London Superior Court backing up Cynthia’s claim that Buzz and Kim had reneged on their earlier court-ordered agreement for visitations. In one complaint, Cloutier argued that Kim had “both, by acts of omission and commission, demonstrated that continued custody of her minor child is not in the best interests of said minor child.”

The second complaint introduced a new dynamic: money.

“The plaintiffs,” Cloutier wrote, “claim money damages…. The amount, legal interest or property in demand are less than $15,000, exclusive of interest and costs.”

On all the documents, Dick and Cynthia were listed as plaintiffs. Beth Ann, probably at the behest of Haiman Clein, was out of the picture—at least legally.

In his application for “temporary custody and temporary restraining order,” Cloutier motioned that “Cynthia is entitled to visitation rights…by virtue of an order for the Probate Court…entered on December 15, 1992….”

But there were inconsistencies in the complaints insofar as Buzz and Kim were concerned. Cloutier wrote that Rebecca had been returned to Kim back on December 20, 1992, at 5:50
P.M
. (the Joseph Jebran sexual abuse incident), and “the said minor child had no bruises of any kind or nature on her body, nor was she harmed in any manner.”

This simply wasn’t true, according to Kim and Buzz, and later was verified by hospital records. Cynthia’s own statements to Kim even disputed it. One of the last times she had seen Kim, Cynthia had acknowledged the bruises on Rebecca’s face, telling Kim that she would never do anything to hurt the child.

“It had come to the plantiffs’ attention that the minor child…was brought to the emergency room…during the evening of December 20, 1992, and, upon information and belief, she apparently had a black eye or eyes,” Cloutier wrote. Then, for the first time, Clein’s name came up. “The plaintiffs request an emergency temporary custody…in favor of either the plaintiffs or attorney and Mrs. Haiman Clein, who have agreed to assume temporary custody of the minor child until further order of the court.”

The Carpenters, it seemed, would rather see Rebecca live with a total stranger—Beth Ann had just met Clein, and the Carpenters themselves had only met him once or twice—rather than her own mother.

Most families give money to their children as a wedding gift; the Carpenters, merely two days after Buzz and Kim had tied the knot, unloaded a barrage of motions and court orders on them, which put them in a position to have to explain themselves all over again.

On January 30, a deputy sheriff showed up at Buzz and Kim’s home in Old Lyme and served them with a summons. A judge would once again decide on where Rebecca would spend her days and how they were adhering to an earlier order by the court to allow the Carpenters visits with the child.

It disgusted Buzz to think that the Carpenters could be so heartless as to want their own daughter and granddaughter to be broken apart. He vowed not to let it happen, regardless of what the courts decided. He and Kim had custody of Rebecca. How could the Carpenters continually drag them into court to try to win custody after a judge had agreed that the best place for Rebecca was with her mother?

It seemed coldhearted, as if there were more to it than just custody. Perhaps it
was
more personal, Buzz often wondered. After all, did the Carpenters, nearing retirement age, actually want to raise a toddler?

One of the things that upset Kim was the way Rebecca referred to her grandparents. She called Cynthia “Mom,” Dick “Poppy.” How could Cynthia, Kim felt, let that go on?

But Cynthia, like the rest of the Carpenters, seemed to care about only one thing: getting custody away from Buzz and Kim.

In all due respect to Cynthia, she had a bond with Rebecca that not too many grandparents can boast about. She had been involved in Rebecca’s life since the very moment she had been born. Cynthia was Kim’s Lamaze coach and present during the birth, coaching Kim along. Between August 1990, when Rebecca was born, and December 1990, Cynthia was with Kim and Rebecca every day, nearly all day long.

But Kim’s life wasn’t centered around her mother any longer. Things had changed since then. Between December 20, 1992, and late January 1993, the Carpenters had spent all of about five hours with Rebecca. And according to Kim, she and Buzz had good reason not to let the Carpenters be involved in Rebecca’s life. Kim claimed her parents had been making things up all along, and they had no trouble lying to get what they wanted—something that started back when Kim had first met Buzz and she was locked out of her own home.

“I asked for a key,” Kim later said, referring to the day after she had gotten locked out of her house. “I didn’t get a key.”

The Carpenters made her feel, from that moment on, as if she weren’t capable of taking care of Rebecca—that she was an incompetent parent and mother. They began questioning everything she did and began taking control of Rebecca’s life. There was even one time when the Carpenters had taken Rebecca on vacation without letting Kim know.

Kim had been at work. When she walked into the house after her shift to pick up Rebecca, she asked Beth Ann where everyone was.

“They went on vacation!” Beth Ann snapped.

“You mean they took Rebecca with them?”

“Yeah!”

Kim had no idea where Rebecca was for about a week.

As January gave way to February, Buzz began doing some serious research on child-parent guardianship laws in Arizona. He had mentioned last year that he was thinking of moving Kim and Rebecca out to Arizona after he got his CNA license, but now he was ready to go forward with it. Things were spiraling out of control. The Carpenters were going to stop at nothing to get custody of Rebecca.

Buzz’s father, Buck, had grown up in the Tucson area and had plenty of connections, many of whom vowed to help Buzz if he ever decided to make the move. One of Buck’s closest friends owned a heating and air conditioner business. If, for some reason, Buzz couldn’t find work as a CNA, Buck’s friend said he would guarantee Buzz a job working for him. Buzz had also found out that a CNA job paid more in Arizona than it did in Connecticut. Also, the cost of living was cheaper. Besides his family, Buzz had nothing holding him back. He often said he was just going to sell his tow truck one day, wake up in the middle of the night and leave. No notice. No warning. Just pack up and go.

“Buzz had always been the type of guy who would continually throw shit against the wall,” Charlie Snyder later said, “yet none of it would stick. When he came to me around this same time and told me he was thinking about moving to Arizona, he was at a point in his life where some of that shit was finally beginning to stick. He was going to school. Had just gotten married. They had custody of Rebecca. Kim was pregnant. He’d stopped hanging around with all those troublemakers he’d ran with and just wanted to provide a life for his family. The Carpenters were making that very difficult for him.”

DCYS social worker Teresa Jenkins had looked at the Carpenter-Clinton case once again to find out how things were going. By February 4, Jenkins filed a report that went through most of the problems the families had had during the past six months. At the end of the report, Jenkins gave her opinion of how the case had progressed.

Contrary to what Beth Ann had told Joseph Jebran, Jenkins reported that Kim had identified the perpetrator of the alleged sexual abuse as “unknown.” There was no mention of Jebran’s name anywhere in Jenkins’s report. It was just more spin on Beth Ann’s part. She had called Jebran and worried him for nothing.

Furthermore, Kim had explained to Jenkins why she wasn’t allowing her parents to see Rebecca overnight: because there was an investigation of sexual abuse going on. Kim thought it was in Rebecca’s best interest to keep her home and only see the Carpenters at a “centralized location.”

Jenkins agreed it was a logical thing for a mother to do. Kim was, after all, acting as any concerned guardian might.

“Since Rebecca’s placement back with her mother on December 15, 1992, she has adjusted very well and has not exhibited any negative behaviors since that time,” Jenkins wrote.

Guardianship, the main thrust of the fighting and bickering, should remain with Kim and Buzz, Jenkins suggested, “as [Kim] has not put her daughter in any danger or put her at risk in any way.”

The report, written by a professional who had been trained to sniff out abuse of any kind, was in total contrast to what Beth Ann and Cynthia had been saying.

Ending the report was perhaps the most infuriating statement that any professional could have said to the Carpenters at the time: “As for visitation with maternal grandparents, it should be solely up to Kim Carpenter-Clinton.”

Any lawyer knew that probate judges relied heavily on these types of reports for basing their decisions. What would happen now?

Finally, Teresa Jenkins made the recommendation that Rebecca should remain with Kim and Buzz Clinton.

A month went by, and things remained heated. Kim and Buzz refused to allow the Carpenters to see Rebecca and, at times, even speak to her on the telephone. Then, on March 2, Thomas Cloutier filed another complaint with the court which specifically asked for “the grandparents” to receive visitation and “specific access by telephone…pending a full hearing….”

Three weeks later, Beth Ann sent Cloutier a fax, detailing how Buzz was beginning to cause the family more trouble.

According to Beth Ann’s fax, Cynthia said that Buzz had called the Carpenters to talk about things, but Cynthia insisted that she speak with Kim. Cynthia didn’t want to deal with Buzz. She saw him as someone with whom she couldn’t negotiate. Kim was her daughter and Rebecca her granddaughter. Anything having to do with either of them would have to be talked about with Kim, not Buzz.

“You’re not allowed to speak with her,” Buzz told Cynthia.

“Why not?”

“Because you upset her.”

“She’s never indicated to me that I upset her by anything I said.”

“Well, that’s tough….”

“What happened the other night at McDonald’s?” Cynthia wanted to know.

A few days before the phone call, Buzz and Kim had agreed to meet the Carpenters at a local McDonald’s. It turned into, Cynthia suggested, a shouting match that Buzz had control over from the start. Cynthia said Buzz had become “insulting.” He had said he’d wanted to sit down and speak with Dick and Cynthia about things, but he insisted on tape-recording the conversation. That’s when Dick refused to talk. Cynthia then said she didn’t like the idea of Buzz’s bringing along a tape recorder. All of a sudden, Cynthia said, Buzz became hostile and insulting.

“You can’t be a grandmother if you don’t know how to be a mother,” Buzz said in a rage. He then said he was in the process of obtaining a restraining order to bar the Carpenters from talking to Kim and bothering her at work.