Tampabay: Records: Mom drugged sons

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Records: Mom drugged sons

Kristina Gaime gave her two boys pills and morphine and put them in her van with a hose to the exhaust, court papers say.

By AMY ELLIS, JAMES THORNER and GEOFF DOUGHERTY

LAND O'LAKES -- It was a quiet Sunday evening as Mathew and Adam Rotell settled in to watch Animorphs, a popular TV show about teenagers who fight evil. The boys had just returned with their mother and grandparents from a Caribbean cruise.

As they watched TV, authorities say, their mother, a home health nurse with easy access to medications, handed each child six white tablets and told them to chew and swallow them. Adam thought the pills were aspirin.

Later that night, she injected the children with morphine, placed them in her minivan and ran a piece of garden hose from the exhaust into the van, authorities say.

The next morning, when the boys were supposed to be in school, Mathew, 6, was found dead from an overdose of morphine and high levels of carbon monoxide, according to court records. Adam, 8, survived after vomiting three times. And the mother, 34-year-old Kristina Gaime, lay semiconscious on the couch with unexplained burns on her body.

In a safe inside the home police later found two notes: one to police and one addressed to "Mom," describing what Gaime had done. The note to police read, "I didn't want anyone to find us in time." Throughout Gaime's home, detectives found a sizable collection of pills, syringes and empty prescription bottles.

On Wednesday, a day after her arrest, a judge unsealed an indictment accusing Gaime of first-degree murder and attempted murder. The indictment, along with two search warrants, offer the first glimpses into what investigators believe happened the night before Mathew Rotell's body was found on April 12.

As details emerged Wednesday, Gaime remained under 24-hour suicide watch at the Pasco County Jail in Land O'Lakes.

Her parents, who testified before a Pasco County grand jury on Tuesday, still refuse to believe their daughter could be capable of murder.

"They are facing some of the worst horrors in life -- the death of a grandson and now the indictment of their daughter," said their attorney, Mark Hershock. "Even with all the evidence -- the note, the toxicology report -- they can't believe it. That's not the Kris they knew."

'It's a mystery'

Gaime wore a navy two-piece jail outfit, a heavy bandage on her right arm, a deep frown on her face. She slumped, keeping weight off her left buttock, which was burned, though how remains a mystery

Hair askew, gripping the wheelchair tightly, she offered one word answers to Pinellas-Pasco Circuit Judge Marc Salton.

Her attorney, Bob Nutter of Tampa, said after the hearing that he had entered a not guilty plea for Gaime. The judge refused to grant bail to Gaime.

"She is innocent as I stand here today," said Nutter. "I believe Kristina did not intentionally do anything to harm herself or her children."

But Nutter said he had reviewed papers supplied to the grand jury that indicted Gaime, and the information appeared to cast considerable suspicion on her.

"But that, in our system of justice, is not the final word," Nutter said. "We have to see if the facts are valid."

Nutter criticized the Pasco County Sheriff's Office, saying they misled the doctor at University Community Hospital, who approved Gaime's release.

Gaime had been there since her son's death, being treated for mental health problems and third-degree burns to her back, buttocks and heels, Nutter said.

Initial arrangements for her release from the hospital called for deputies to take her to the Hillsborough County Jail by ambulance, book her and then house her under guard at a New Port Richey hospital, Nutter said.

Instead, she was taken from the Hillsborough jail in a patrol car and lodged at the Pasco County Jail in Land O'Lakes, Nutter said.

"They totally misled the doctor," Nutter said. "I'm not sure he would have released her if he'd known that's what they were going to do."

Pasco sheriff's spokesman Kevin Doll said Gaime would be evaluated mentally and physically and could be moved to a hospital, if necessary. The jail has a separate ward staffed with nurses for inmates with special mental or physical needs, Doll said. He denied that deputies misled anyone about Gaime's release.

"Obviously, her well-being is important to us," Doll said. "She will be taken very good care of."

Nutter said there's little reason for Gaime to be lodged at the county jail. She needs surgery for her burns, he said, and she has injuries that would make it impossible for her to escape.

"This girl is not going anywhere," said Nutter.

Although Nutter said Gaime is suicidal and needs mental-health treatment, he said the injuries on her back and heels would have been difficult for Gaime to inflict upon herself. But Gaime has no memory of how she was burned -- or of any of the events leading up to Matthew's death, Nutter said.

Gaime remembers ordering a pizza with her children on that night, Nutter said. She did some laundry in the garage. Matthew and Adam sat in the van, as they often did. And that's the last thing Gaime recalls, Nutter said.

After that, he said, "It's a mystery."

Prescription for tragedy

Investigators found 20 different prescription medications, including painkillers, muscle relaxants and anti-depressants. Both boys had asthma inhalers

Many of the pills could be explained by aches and pains from injuries suffered in automobile accidents. Court documents from her divorce from the boys' father, Stephen Rotell, allude to three wrecks that left her with nagging back injuries.

But that didn't explain the morphine.

Detectives found three syringes of the addictive narcotic in the kitchen, and that substance turned up during tests of Mathew's and Adam's blood.

Three additional syringes in the kitchen contained haloperidol, a powerful tranquilizer used to sedate psychotics.

Investigators also seized a green bag containing medical supplies and a container with spent needles.

As a home health care nurse on contract with Hospice of Hillsborough, Gaime was well acquainted with morphine. It is prescribed for many terminal hospice patients.

Hospice has reported no stolen morphine, said Susan Bruno, a vice president for the non-profit organization. But had Gaime wanted to get hold of the drug, it would not have been difficult for her, Bruno said.

Among the prescription medications found in the Gaime's bathroom was a bottle of a commonly prescribed sleeping pill called Triazolam, better known by its trade name Halcion.

It's the same drug that sparked at least 100 lawsuits from people claiming the drug made them uncontrollably violent.

But the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has ruled the drug safe, although the agency added a sentence to the prescription label warning of side effects such as anxiety, behavior changes and abnormal thinking.

Waiting for answers

Prosecutors and sheriff's investigators refused to offer their theories Wednesday. But Mathew's death came just two weeks before a scheduled custody hearing during which Gaime feared she could lose her children to Stephen Rotell, the boys' father

One person waiting for answers is Rotell, said Jim Kramer, his attorney. The couple divorced in 1994. Since then, they have battled for custody of the boys, with Gaime three times accusing her ex-husband of sexually abusing the children. The charges were unfounded.

"Despite their problems, he would never have thought she was capable of this," Kramer said. "And now to learn that she apparently had tried to kill Adam too. He's just devastated by it."

Adam, who now lives with his father, had been scheduled to visit his mother at University Community on Mother's Day after a judge approved Gaime's request earlier this week. On Wednesday, after learning that Gaime had been arrested, the judge revoked that permission.

Still unwilling to accept the mounting evidence against their daughter, Gaime's parents, Gary and Kathleen McDuffie, say an intruder could have been the real killer, said Hershock, their attorney.

"There's a lot of empty spaces in the whole story," he said. "There could've been an intruder that did all of this."

Gaime's father-in-law, who along with her estranged husband, Jerry Gaime, lives in Texas, said he cannot believe what he is hearing on television about Gaime.

"I know it doesn't look good, but until they prove she did it, I'm not going to believe it," said Gary Pyle. His stepson, Jerry, is Gaime's second husband. The couple has been separated for at least six months. "She's a real sweet, loving, kind, adoring person," Pyle said.

One of Gaime's neighbors in Land O'Lakes, who said she watched Gaime become enraged when someone complained about her cat's mewing, believes the looming custody fight might have made Gaime snap.

"She's the kind of person who would say, "If I can't have them, nobody else will,' " said Lynn Tait, who lived next door.

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