The Constance Fisher Tragedy

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Dedication

Chapter 1 Disaster

Chapter 2 Beginnings

Chapter 3 A New Home

Chapter 4 Diagnosis and Treatment

Chapter 5 The devil made me do it

Chapter 6 In her own Words

Chapter 7 Picking up the story

Chapter 8 Why?

Chapter 9 Dr. Isaac Ray

Chapter 10 A day in the life

Chapter 11 Release

Chapter 12 Deja Vu

Chapter 13 Aftermath

Chapter 14 River Ride

Chapter 15 Carnage

Chapter 16 Moving forward, Stepping backward

Appendix

Reference Notes

Acknowledgments

The writer would like to thank the following for their efforts in completing this manuscript:

Dr. Ulrich Jacobsohn for lending his expertise and support, a true pleasure to work with such a fine gentleman.

Michael Shepherd for helping me craft the original idea.

Sam Shain and Laura Fellows for their editorial support.

And Louise Bowker for opening up to us the world of her sister.

Introduction

My sister Peggy was a beautiful lady, a happy mother, loving wife and a devout Catholic. She was happy with her life. She LOVED her husband and her children. They were the center of her world. The children were very smart, active, outgoing and happy. She was a great cook; she enjoyed reading, sewing knitting and other crafts. She and Carl had a nice country house with lots of land and a large garden with both vegetables and flowers. Carl had a good job at the railroad and the family had a comfortable income.

She was hospitalized in the week prior to the second tragic episode in her life; the drowning of her children. My friend Fran Roy was the nursing supervisor on Peggy’s hospital floor. Fran cried as she told me that that as she helped Peg to get ready for her discharge, she was crying. She told Fran that she was afraid to go home. Her doctor’s response was, Go home & take care of your family. You ll be fine. He knew her history, she was begging for help. The medical community let Peggy down. Had her doctor paid attention and taken care of her needs, this never would have happened.

The Andrea Yates tragedy should never have happened. Her case was alarmingly parallel to my sister’s. Again, the medical community let her down when she asked for help.

Please be aware of any mother you know who may be suffering from depression. Offer to take children of young mothers for a time to allow her to rest physically and mentally from the difficult daily job of motherhood. It is my understanding that these mothers experiencing extreme hormonal depression won t usually ask for help.

It is my sincere hope that this book will reach out and educate doctors and layman alike to recognize women like Peggy so that this kind of tragedy can be stopped. If this book helps to prevent even one other woman from hurting her family, Bob Briggs will have succeeded in his endeavor.

I miss my sister and will never have the pleasure of loving my nieces and nephews.

Louise Marcoux Bowker

Dedication

To Constance Fisher with the prayer that her sufferings were not in vain…

Now I think I know, what you tried to say to me…

How you suffered for your sanity…

How you tried to set them free…

But they would not listen, they did not know how…

Perhaps they’ll listen now…

Don McLean

From the song, Vincent

* CHAPTER ONE *

Disaster

A voice was heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children; and she refused to be comforted, because they were no more.

Jeremiah 31:15

Monday, March 8, 1954 5:30 a.m.

The sun rose slowly on a cold, snowy, day as the city of Waterville, Maine began to stir to life. Carl Fisher was up early, making his breakfast, packing his lunch, and waiting for his three youngsters to arise from their slumber.

He looked out on the steps that led to the ground from his second story flat to see if they needed shoveling. He checked the driveway and his 1949 Ford to see if he could slide out in time and not be late for work.

The Fisher children arose in their usual fashion. Richard, aged six and in the first grade, was always up first. He looked forward to watching Howdy Doody on TV before hurrying off to catch the school bus.

The happy face of the clown Clarabelle got the day off to a happy start. Ventriloquist Buffalo Bob Smith pulled the strings on the freckled-faced red-haired puppet, Howdy Doody, to provide an hour of entertainment for the recently discovered young audience. The show would end with Howdy singing jingles for commercials like the one for Halo shampoo, also makers of Selsum shampoo. Howdy would wave and sign off with the admonition of see you tomorrow! But there would be no tomorrow for Richard Fisher.

Following Richard to the television set was his sleepy eyed brother Daniel, aged five and a half-day student at the Sacred Heart Catholic school. The baby, Deborah, just short of one year old, was still asleep in the crib beside her mother, but would join them shortly.

After serving the children breakfast, and sending young Richard off to school, Carl Fisher went to the master bedroom to talk to his wife before he left for his job at the Maine Central Railroad. Most of the past week he had taken off to be with her as he could see her mood sinking into depression once again.

He brought his wife a cup of coffee and asked if she felt well enough for him to leave.

I feel fine, Carl, she said. I had a good nights sleep for the first time in weeks. It’s okay, the kids and I will be fine.

But Carl Fisher had his doubts and suspicions…

The happy world that the Fishers had built began to fall apart shortly after the birth of their third child, Deborah. Feeling depressed and run down, Mrs. Fisher made an appointment to see Dr. Richard Chasse, who had delivered the child the past March.

The routine post partum check-up revealed that Mrs. Fisher had hypo-chromic anemia. Untreated, the condition often led to clinical depression, and feelings of fatigue. Dr. Chasse treated her with a high iron diet, and weekly injections of folic acid and vitamin B-12. In a couple of weeks, her blood work was normal, and Constance Fisher was feeling like her old self again.

But by November of 1953, Constance’s health had again taken a turn for the worse. It was shortly after she stopped breast- feeding Deborah, the only child she weaned.

Constance was now at a point where everything bothered her. The baby crying, the dog barking, and Carl having an occasional beer. She saw bills mounting and no way to pay them. Christmas was right around the corner and it would not be much of a Christmas at the Fisher house.

Usually bubbly and full of the holiday spirit, Constance was slipping into a deepening valley of depression. Crying spells were frequent and triggered for no apparent reason. A pervading gloom seemed to snatch all her joy of living.

And then, out of nowhere, she began to hear voices. They sounded like a man’s voice. They seemed to be an external one, not the voice of her inner thought life. They were always accompanied by a presence. They offered a solution to all of her problems: suicide.

Around Christmas, Constance began to get other ideas. Ideas like it would be better for all concerned if she killed not just herself, but the entire family.

The ideas incubated over the next three months before they finally hatched. When thought turned to action, she almost strangled her baby Deborah to death with a scarf.

It was in early January of 1954. While Carl was at work and the other children asleep, she wrapped a nylon scarf around the neck of little Debbie and began to pull it tight. When Constance heard the baby shriek, she resisted the temptation and frantically called Carl who left work and immediately returned home.

Not knowing what else to do, he took her to see Dr. Chasse again. Embarrassed and confused, Constance walked up the two flights of stairs to Dr. Chasse’s office, before turning around and running back to the car.

Carl, however, convinced her to keep a new appointment for the next day. Together they agreed that the situation was spiraling way out of control.

Chasse prescribed a sedative to help Constance sleep and Phenobarbital to be taken at intervals throughout the day to ease her anxiety. Little was made about the incident with Deborah.

His report dated January 21, 1954 read:

This time she came to my office with her husband complaining of being run down, nervous, having a poor appetite and worrying a great deal about paying her bills and similar household problems. Physical examination revealed no astounding abnormity, either emotionally or physically. She complained of insomnia and a pent up feeling inside…

I prescribed a mild sedative (Phenobarbital) to be taken in doses of one teaspoonful after meals and at bedtime. I re-assured the patient that she would improve and I was pleased that she was so encouraged. I told her that if any more trouble in this manner developed we would have her see a specialist for nervous diseases to which she agreed. (1)

Dr. Chasse encouraged Carl to move his family from their secluded two-room cabin on Snow Pond, an extremely small space for a family of five people and two pets.

Although the family enjoyed living on the water, it was fraught with hardships. The was no indoor plumbing, or running water. They got drinking and bathing water from a spring, but in the winter had to chop through 3 to 4 inches of ice to scoop water from the lake.

And after a recent fire scare, Carl switched from oil to coal which produced an undesirable gas that Dr. Chasse felt might be contributing to Mrs. Fisher’s problems.

Dr. Chasse also insisted that they were missing important social aspects by being so secluded from family and friends.

Carl Fisher agreed, and moved his family into the top floor of a duplex on 31 High Street in Waterville which was in proximity to Constance’s foster parents, Warren and Ursula Marcoux.

At first the move was greeted with success. The money earned from the sale of the cabin was enough to pay off their debts and give them a small cushion. Constance was within walking distance of her mother, who helped with the children and the chores and was a companion while Carl was at work.

Mrs. Marcoux and her daughters Bunny and Virginia would take Constance shopping to break up the monotony of the day, or if she began to feel depressed, could show up at a moment’s notice. The Marcoux’s also contributed by buying a washing machine, installing a telephone, and buying them the chief novelty of the day; a black-and-white television set.

An avid reader, Constance once again began to find consolation and inspiration in books and magazines. It appeared to all concerned that Constance was getting over the hump of the depression that had plagued her by varying degrees since last summer.

In a new environment and buoyed by medication, Constance appeared to have a new lease on life. She told Dr. Chasse at an appointment on February 4, 1954, that she was sleeping well, enjoying shopping with her mother, and wishing that she had moved away from the cottage long before. She told Dr. Chasse that she was very pleased that she was much better now and that she no longer had the urge to kill her children…

The Fisher family in 1950.

From right to left are: Richard, Carl, Daniel, and Constance.

Chasse gave her another physical examination and ordered a CBC which revealed that she was again anemic and advised her to begin an anti-emetic diet, with an oral iron supplement. He gave her intra-muscular injections of folic acid and B-12 and recommended that she see a specialist, Dr. Loring Pratt, for an inner ear infection that would not clear up.

After visiting Dr. Pratt’s office, Constance left with an antibiotic and a prescription for a special shampoo for the psoriasis that Dr. Pratt believed was aggravating her ear condition. Dr. Pratt told her to be very careful of the shampoo, a Selsum product, as it contained a very poisonous ingredient.

Please, keep it out of the reach of the children, he warned. And be sure to clean yourself thoroughly, even under your fingernails."

But the respite from her illness was once again short-lived. Despite the efforts of the doctors, Carl, who had now taken on a second job to pay for medical costs, and the support of her family, Constance once again lapsed into the black hole of depression.

Afraid for herself, her family, and what the future might bring, Constance Fisher was contemplating suicide again. On the night of February 11, shortly after supper, she swallowed the remainder of the bottle of Phenobarbital.

When Carl went to bed, he found his wife in a near comatose condition. He immediately phoned Dr. Sam Fisher who hurriedly came to the apartment and gave Constance an antidote for the drug turned poison. In the morning, Carl contacted Dr. Chasse.

Dr. Chasse found Constance drowsy but alert. When he asked why she had taken the overdose, she replied that she felt unusually depressed and believed that if taking a little medicine helped, taking a lot more would help her even further.

Chasse explained that such drugs did not work that way, and ordered Carl to flush the remainder of her medicines down the toilet. He then recommended that she see Dr. Stebbins, a psychiatrist in Bangor, as soon as possible.

Instead of seeing Dr. Stebbins, Carl opted to take her to a local psychiatrist, Dr. Paul Jones, who practiced in Union and the nearby Mansfield Clinic in Fairfield. On February 18, they had their first meeting with Dr. Jones at his clinic in Union.

After a brief visit, Jones assured Constance that those who talk about committing suicide seldom actually ever do. He told Carl and his mother Alice, who went to the appointment out of concern for the children, that there was no real cause for concern for his wife or the children. His final advice to Constance: Go home and keep on with your work as a wife and mother.

In writing up the minutes of the appointment, Dr. Jones appeared confident in his diagnosis: Situational Depression brought on by their living condition at Snow Pond and the lack of a social life.

He saw Mrs. Fisher again, this time on February 23, at the Mansfield Clinic in Waterville. It was a much more involved meeting. Constance was on a high or at her best. Or maybe she had already determined to kill herself and the children and it was all an act.

Jones wrote:

Her mood was decidedly light and she smiled and laughed frequently at appropriate times. She said she looked forward to the future and felt that now that they were living in town she would have more friends and that she would be able to get her husband to go out more.

…she denied any periods of depression and thoughts of suicide saying where do you suppose I got that idea? Probably I was just lonesome being at the camp and not seeing people.

But a new twist developed later that night when Jones returned to his practice in Union. He received a desperate phone call from Ursula Marcoux, saying that she had received in the mail something tantamount to a suicide note from Constance.

Jones wrote:

On arriving in Union that night I received a phone call from Mrs. Marcoux, the patient’s foster mother.

She reported that she had received a note in the mail postmarked 11:30 a.m. (at which time the patient was in my office) The note gave direction as to where to find certain papers. The obvious implication was that the patient might destroy herself…

This report was so completely in variance with her appearance at the interview that I was at a loss to explain it to Mrs. Marcoux.

Carl Fisher was now running out of options. His wife’s emotions would run the spectrum, and when she was down she was way down. At the advice of Dr. Fish at the Mansfield clinic, he considered sending her to the state mental hospital in Augusta.

But Constance objected and Carl was inclined to give in. She feared that if she was hospitalized there would be no one to properly care for the children. And even if she did become a patient at the Augusta State Hospital, could they really help her?

Carl had a problem. His wife would not comply with a voluntary commitment and she was not sick enough to be blue papered. He had little choice but to let a runaway train finish its course… or crash.

On top of her depression, Constance was once again being tormented by voices. At first she thought it might be God or of God, but now she wasn’t sure. Would God want her to end the very lives she had brought into the world? And weren’t both murder and suicide mortal sins, punishable by eternity in hell? And what about the commandment Thou Shalt not Kill?

Surely her priest, Fr. John F. Holihan would know. She planned to ask him but the appointment kept getting delayed.

On Ash Wednesday, the voice spoke to her again. And because this was a religious holiday, she concluded that it must be God after all. And the holiday was significant, Ash Wednesday. In the Bible, ashes were a sign of mourning, and only death causes mourning.

Having failed to do away with herself the first time, she heard the voice mocking her, calling her a coward, and threatening that things would only get worse. Day and night she conjured ideas of how to end her nightmare, ideas like inhaling exhaust fumes from the car, hanging herself, or stabbing herself with a knitting needle.

But now another idea roared full bloom into her head.

She needed to do away with her whole family, Carl included. Constance agreed with the voice that in the next life there would be an end to the awful nightmare that she perceived she and her family to be in.

Constance remembered a colt .45 automatic pistol that was kept at her parents’ house. She had seen her foster father clean it a hundred times before putting it away in the top drawer of his bureau.

On the morning of February 17, knowing the Marcoux house would be empty, Constance trudged through the snow the short distance to 9 Riverview Road to steal the gun.

She let herself into the house, found the gun and clumsily forced a clip of bullets into the magazine, only to have the pistol misfire and discharge a bullet into the mattress. She fired again successfully into the mattress before sneaking out with the gun and returning to her apartment.

She would now wait for the right opportunity, at night while they slept, to murder her family. And then she would turn the gun on herself.

In the darkness, Constance Fisher roamed around the five- room apartment hour upon hour that night. The gun was loaded, and the safety was off, as she walked the floor wondering how she could ever follow through on such an awful plan. And for some reason, the voice was quiet, not urging or threatening as it had before.

By daybreak, Constance knew she could not go through with it. Somewhere deep in her conscience she knew that no matter how dark things might seem, she had no right to take the lives of her children and husband. She returned the gun the next day, only to steal it again two days later. But once again, she lacked the resolve to pull the trigger.

Monday, March 8, 1954 6:30 a.m.

Carl Fisher kissed his wife goodbye and grabbed the keys to his black Ford sedan for the short ride to the Maine Central Railroad terminus. From the bedroom window, Constance watched her husband put on his winter coat and hat and walk down the outside second story steps and enter the car.

For a moment, Constance lurched for the door to tell Carl that all was not well, that she was hiding a secret from him. That just days before she had brought a gun into the apartment to kill him and the kids. And that today she was going to kill herself and the children, just as the voice had commanded her.

But then she suddenly stopped, as if held by some unseen force.

For young Richard Fisher, it would be another day at school and he was having trouble adjusting. He had been attending the elementary school in Oakland, where he had lots of friends, and the school was within walking distance from his house on Snow Pond.

After Christmas break, however, his family had moved to Waterville and Richard was enrolled in the first grade at a new school, the Sacred Heart Catholic School in Waterville .

Richard Dickie Fisher

April 2, 1947- March 8, 1954

First Grade School photo

1953

It was a turbulent time for the youngster. It was a time of adjusting to a new teacher, new classmates and new neighbors.

School was a particular challenge. He had to make new friends in a strange place. The teachers, all females and nuns, looked imposing in their long black dresses and habits. Worst of all, he had to get used to wearing a school uniform, in which he felt awkward and funny.

But he had seen his dad in his military uniform. Daddy had served four years in the Air Force in World War 11 and was considered a hero for fighting despite contracting malaria and being wounded in battle, for which he received a medal. He was honored in the community, especially on Armistice Day, when he would wear his uniform and march in the parade.

Young Richard was the apple of his father’s eye, his first born, the thought that gave him the sustenance to endure four years in an awful war. Slender and with green eyes like his father, Richard was named for his grandfather and would be the first Fisher to carry on the family name to a new generation.

To young Richard, the closest thing to God was his father, and the safest place on earth was at home with his mom and dad no matter where the physical location might be.

Then there was Richard’s mom. To others it was Connie, Constance, Peggy, or Mrs. Fisher. But to Richard, she was Mummy. There was never a question of her love and care. She rarely had a harsh word for any of the children and her affection was demonstrative, continually showering them with kisses and caresses.

And there was never accusation that any of the Fisher children where uncared for or denied anything materially or emotionally from their mother.

But young Richard must have known something was wrong with Mummy, as children instinctively do. There were her crying jags, days when she could scarcely get out of bed, and frequent trips to the doctor. She even had Daddy shoot the family pets. Yes, there was something wrong with Mummy; very wrong.

Although Richard excelled in his school work, being alone at recess while other groups of kids played was difficult. He tried hard to fit in with the other boys but it takes time. And time was not on his side.

At 3:00 on March 8, 1954 the final bell rang for the dismissal of school at the Sacred Heart Catholic School. Young Richard gathered his books, put his chair up on the desk and entered the line of students waiting for the school bus to take them home. Waiting at the door was Sister Dorothy who was bidding the children goodbye and a see you in the morning.

The bus ride home was routine. It was a cold winter day and even the warmth of the school bus heater rattling full speed was nothing like it would be in just a few minutes at home. He sat alone. Even those who got off at the bus stop at the corner of High and Main Street were still strangers to him.

But soon he would be home where it would be warm, and Mummy would have a snack prepared