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Gaime wants confiscated letters back

The mother, accused in a murder-suicide attempt involving her sons, wants items thrown out as evidence returned to her.

By JAMAL THALJI
Published September 22, 2005

DADE CITY - Once they were the linchpin of the case against Kristina Gaime: purported suicide letters prosecutors said she wrote before trying to kill herself and her two sons on April 12, 1999.

Then a judge threw them out, along with much of the evidence against Gaime, declaring authorities illegally seized them with improperly obtained warrants. None of that evidence can be used against Gaime at her Oct. 31 first-degree murder trial.

Now Gaime wants nearly everything detectives confiscated from her Land O'Lakes townhome in 1999, according to a motion filed this month by her attorneys.

Attorney Mark Ware said Wednesday he could not comment on the pending motion before the Oct. 12 hearing date.

The state calls it a failed murder-suicide plot, but only 6-year-old Mathew Rotell died. Adam Rotell, now 14, survived, and so did the boys' mother. Authorities say she drugged the boys, loaded them into her minivan, directed the exhaust into the cabin, then got inside with them. Adam and his mother escaped. Mathew was found dead inside the minivan.

Gaime wants the van back, too.

"The above described property was seized from the Defendant's person by the Pasco County Sheriff's Office pursuant to the investigation of the death of Mathew Rotell," read the motion signed by defense attorney Lyann Goudie.

"The above mentioned property is no longer needed at the trial. The above described property is not contraband and is not illegal for the Defendant to possess."

Detectives took a blue box containing papers and a safe out of the townhome. Gaime wants those back, and these items: gold and silver baby rings; a Magical Journeys audiotape; a white New Testament Bible; a 1973 Liberty Kennedy half dollar; U.S. Savings Bonds; photographs; Gaime's notes; legal papers and receipts; two note pads; one envelope full of papers; medical records, a caller ID unit; medical supplies; and a GMC Safari minivan.

Also listed: "four miscellaneous letters."

In 2004 Circuit Judge Lynn Tepper blocked the state from using evidence such as the handwritten letters, and the bucket and hose authorities say was used to pipe in the carbon monoxide, against Gaime. In April, the 2nd Court of Appeal unanimously upheld Tepper's ruling. The bucket and hose are not listed on the motion.

To defeat a bond motion, prosecutors had to get a sworn statement from her surviving son, Adam, raising the possibility he will testify against his mother. Gaime also faces a charge of attempted first-degree murder.

Some of Gaime's letters have been released, but the alleged suicide notes have long been sealed from public view. In 2004, State Attorney Bernie McCabe quoted a once sealed passage from a letter Gaime allegedly wrote to her mother, dated March 23, 1999, in which she wrote, "May God forgive me."

Gaime pleaded not guilty, and Goudie both maintained her client's innocence and challenged the prosecution's version of events. In July, Gaime's lawyers filed papers hinting a possible defense strategy: that someone else may have been inside Gaime's home the night before.

Several issues must be decided before the trial, including the defense's change of venue motion and a third motion to release Gaime on bond. Adam and his father, Stephen Rotell, are set to be deposed Sept. 28.

The prosecution could not be reached for comment.

[Last modified September 22, 2005, 01:04:14]