Tuesday, May 04, 1999

Mother on tape: 'I just panicked'

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Trial begins for woman who abandoned baby

BY SHEILA McLAUGHLIN
The Cincinnati Enquirer

On the first day of her trial, Deborah Mackey was in tears as she listened to the tape of her interview with a detective the night she abandoned her daughter. (Dick Swaim photo) | ZOOM |

        LEBANON — Hours after wrapping her newborn daughter in paper towels and placing her in a factory trash can Dec. 14, Deborah Mackey told police she knew what she did was wrong.

        “I wasn't thinking straight for some reason. I just panicked. There is no excuse for what I did. I know it's wrong,” Ms. Mackey told Franklin Detective Rick Thacker in a taped interview at Middletown Hospital.

        That statement, taped while Ms. Mackey was in the hospital emergency room, was played in a Warren County common pleas courtroom as Ms. Mackey's trial opened Monday before Judge P. Daniel Fedders.

        Prosecutors asked the judge to drop a charge of involuntary manslaughter against Ms. Mackey. The 39-year-old Liberty Township woman is being tried on charges of at tempted murder and child endangering. Pleading insanity, she faces up to 15 years in prison if convicted.

        Defense lawyer Donald Oda III said Ms. Mackey shouldn't be held accountable for her actions because she was suffering from a personality disorder. When the trial resumes today, a psychologist will testify that Ms. Mackey experienced a psychotic episode and lost touch with reality when she gave birth prematurely and abandoned Holly Ann, he said.

        Prosecutors contend Ms. Mackey did not want children and that she tried to kill Holly Ann Mackey when she threw her in the trash in the restroom at Ample Industries in Franklin.

        A cleaning woman found the baby while emptying the trash. Flown by helicopter to Children's Hospital in Dayton, the baby was diagnosed with hydrocephaly, a brain-damaging and fatal genetic defect that is unrelated to her birth six weeks early or her abandonment.

        On the day she was rescued from the trash, Holly Ann was suffering from frostbite, severe hypothermia and respiratory distress — conditions that assistant county prosecutor Andy Sievers said put the infant's life in jeopardy.

        Detective Thacker said Ms. Mackey appeared emotionless and expressionless as she recalled giving birth in a stall of the women's restroom shortly after her shift started at 3 p.m.

        Seated at the defense table in a navy blue pinstripe suit, Ms. Mackey wiped away tears, buried her face in her hands and stared in her lap as the interview with police played.

        According to the statement, Ms. Mackey said she knew the baby was alive when she dropped her in the trash can because she heard the child whimper.

        “I wanted it to have a better life than the life I could give it. From what I did, it was not very obvious,” she told Detective Thacker.

        “I'll regret it until the day I die. It wasn't its fault ... I'd like a second chance with it, but I know that won't happen. I'm not going to be forgiven.”

        Ample employees testified that Ms. Mackey spent more than an hour in the restroom and told co-workers she was ill and had started her menstrual cycle to account for the blood on the floor.

        Ms. Mackey told police and a children's services worker that she hid the pregnancy from her live-in boyfriend, Danny Richardson, even though he was the father. Instead, she said she planned to have the baby at home and put it up for adoption because she didn't think she could be a good mother.

        She also was worried that she would have another miscarriage, said Wendy Ford, a caseworker with Butler County Children Services Board, who spoke with Ms. Mackey in jail.

        Ms. Ford said Ms. Mackey told her that Mr. Richardson had become upset a year before when she had miscarried. “She couldn't tolerate making him upset or letting him down,” Ms. Ford said.

        Mr. Richardson, who has custody of Holly Ann, testified that he did not know about the pregnancy or the birth until police came to their home Dec. 14 looking for Ms. Mackey.

        A few days later, in a phone call from the jail, Ms. Mackey asked him to tell police they had discussed putting Holly Ann up for adoption, Mr. Richardson said.

        Monday, he denied ever talking about adoption before the birth, saying he did not know Ms. Mackey was pregnant.

        After leaving the witness stand, Mr. Richardson cradled Holly Ann in his arms in the courthouse lobby and told reporters how much he cherished his daughter.

        “I love her to death and I'm sorry for what happened to her,” he said.

        Because of her birth defect, Holly Ann is expected to live only one or two years. For now, she must be fed through a tube in her abdomen and requires frequent doctor visits, he said.

        Ms. Mackey has visited Holly Ann once or twice since her release from jail in February, Mr. Richardson said. The couple split up after the arrest.

        “I don't hate Debbie,” he said. “I'm sorry for what she did. I'm just sorry.”

       

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