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Mother pleads guilty in her son's killing

Kristina Gaime agrees to a sentence of 20 years in the murder of one son, saving her surviving son from having to testify against her.

By JAMAL THALJI
Published October 6, 2005

DADE CITY - Kristina Gaime, accused of killing her 6-year-old son and trying to kill his 8-year-old brother, seemed to have gained the upper hand against prosecutors who wanted her to spend the rest of her life in prison.

A judge had thrown out key pieces of evidence: purported suicide notes she wrote amid a bitter custody battle, and the hose authorities say she used to poison her drugged boys with carbon monoxide.

An appeals court upheld the decision, devastating the state's case. Gaime's attorneys declared her innocence and their readiness to prove it at trial.

Then, on Wednesday evening, a secret hearing produced a surprise plea deal: Gaime pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and attempted second-degree murder, agreeing to a prison sentence of 20 years.

Her hand, it seems, was forced by the emergence of a key prosecution witness:

Her surviving son, Adam Rotell.

At one point, prosecutors said it could be devastating for Adam to testify at his mother's trial. He has undergone continual therapy since the 1999 death of his brother, Mathew.

But in May, the now 14-year-old Adam detailed in an affidavit what he saw that April night.

He was ready to testify against his mother.

Because key evidence in the case had been thrown out, Adam's testimony became all the more critical to the prosecution.

"It put a certain amount of weight on Adam Rotell's shoulders," prosecutor Phil Van Allen said Wednesday. "So to avoid hurting that young man any more than he's already been, we negotiated the plea."

Gaime's attorney said the mother wanted to spare herself, and her son.

"She understands that it is in the best interests of her," said lawyer Lyann Goudie, "and the surviving member of her family."

Said Circuit Judge Lynn Tepper, whose rulings dramatically altered the case: "The child has suffered enough."

Officially, Gaime made a plea of convenience.

The 41-year-old, who faced first-degree murder, attempted murder and a life sentence, will get credit for 61/2-years spent in jail awaiting trial.

"Is there anything you wish to say?" the judge asked.

"No," said a stoic Gaime.

The ex-husband she battled for custody, the man she repeatedly accused of sexually abusing the boys, and whom the state cleared each time, also had his say Wednesday.

"It's upsetting to both of us and the entire family," said a red-eyed Stephen Rotell. "But emotionally for Adam, it is the best choice for him."

Judge Tepper admonished Gaime for thinking her sons would be better off dead than with their father.

"I cannot begin to imagine," she said, "the depths to which one must sink to think this is an alternative."

The case began 61/2 years ago with a call from Gaime's mother to the Pasco County Sheriff's Office.

On the morning of April 12, 1999, she found her 6-year-old grandson dead in the family minivan.

When deputies arrived, they discovered a garden hose near the minivan, parked in the garage of the Land O'Lakes townhouse. Gaime was semiconscious on a sofa, burns and sores on her backside.

Adam, her 8-year-old son, was alive in the house, but blood tests showed morphine coursed through his veins.

The night before, prosecutors alleged, Gaime gave her sons pills, saying they were aspirin. She is accused of giving them morphine.

Deputies, in what proved to be a critical mistake, took the garden hose without a search warrant. They later went to a judge to get warrants to search for the medicine given to the boys.

The warrants produced a series of notes and letters, including one that investigators considered damning:

"I obtained the meds today," it read. "I need to do what has to be done. . . . Know that the kids nor I suffered. First, I medicated the boys, and then I started the car and stuffed up the exhaust pipe and then put a hose from the exhaust into the car . . . The boys were already asleep and dreaming very happy thoughts. May God forgive me."

Three weeks later, Gaime, a home health care nurse known around the neighborhood as "Super Mom," was charged with first-degree murder and attempted murder.

"It looked like a very solid case," Bruce Bartlett, chief assistant in the Pinellas-Pasco State Attorney's Office, recalled Wednesday. "You had a woman who tried to commit suicide with her kids. There was really no issue with the circumstances there."

But the case only grew more complex, first by a series of changes on the defense team. Then came the devastating 2004 hearing before Judge Tepper. She threw out the hose as evidence because it was taken three hours before a warrant was obtained.

Not even the warrants deputies obtained survived Tepper's scrutiny. She found fault with each one, even calling lead detective Brett Landsberg's testimony "less than genuine."

When it was all over, the prosecution's case was in tatters.

"We lost the hose, the note, quite a bit of evidence there," Bartlett said. "It was just one thing after another."

For weeks the defense attorneys readied for trial.

They deposed mental health experts who had treated or examined Adam Rotell. They also filed hundreds of pages of motions hinting at an alternate theory: that someone else was in Gaime's Land O'Lakes townhouse that night.

The negotiations began Sept. 7, but no specifics emerged until Tuesday night.

State Attorney Bernie McCabe had prosecutors meet with Stephen Rotell for two hours, hoping to get his opinion on a proposed plea bargain. The father, who left court without comment on Wednesday, has repeatedly refused to talk about the case.

Gaime made her decision late Wednesday morning, according to her attorney. The hearing was put off until 6 p.m. so Stephen Rotell could attend.

The attorneys said they were told not to talk about the deal because of unwanted media attention. Courthouse personnel were ordered not to speak about the case.

Absent from Wednesday's hearing were Gaime's parents, Gary and Kathleen McDuffie, who went to considerable expense to defend their daughter. Gary McDuffie said he was unaware of the deal and would not comment.

And what about the defense's alternate theory?

"Let me put it this way," Goudie said. "I still maintain it would have been a very interesting trial."

The mental states of both Gaime and her son were discussed.

Gaime told the court she has been diagnosed with depression, anxiety and bipolar disorders and is undergoing a new drug regime. The judge was pleased that Adam Rotell is making "ongoing improvement."

The prosecution's final request was to have the judge bar the mother from any contact with her son. The judge agreed.

"I wish that you have no contact with him ever," the father said, "and he wishes it also."

Times staff writer Alex Leary contributed to this report.

[Last modified October 6, 2005, 06:22:27]