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Harrington appeared subdued and showed little emotion as he listened to

testimony at the trial. Photographs showed images of his wife and son, as well as

blood stains. He confessed to killing his son while he played with toys and then

carried him to a couch, on the opposite side of his dead mother, where he shot

him a second and third time. Blood stains were found close to his Hot Wheels.

In 1975, Harrington shot his wife (Becky, 28) and two daughters (Pamela, 9, and

Cassandra, 4) with his service revolver. He then turned himself into the police.

His psychiatric instability was partly blamed on his harrowing Vietnam War

experiences. He allegedly confessed to his psychiatrist that he had killed a

Vietnamese mother and four children by mistake. His defense attorney stated

that “demons were torturing him” (Altman, 2000). When he made the 911 call,

he claimed that “things just weren’t working out” and that everything had “just

gone to hell.”

The previous murders included his wife Becky, 28, and daughters Pamela, 9, and

Cassandra, 4. At trial it was determined that the couple had been separated.

Although Harrington was committed for psychiatric evaluation at a state facility

he only stayed for two months. He continued to suffer from anxiety and the

effects of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. At the trial for the 1999 killings, it

came out that he’d lost his job and run out of his medication for depression.

He told Sgt. Felix Kirk that he was fired because everyone was scared to work

with him (James, 2000). He stated to investigators that he hadn’t slept in four

nights and then, depressed, asked a neighbor if he could borrow the gun. He

considered killing them on the same night he borrowed the gun, but things

seemed “alright” then. However, he had trouble dealing with the problems that

were mounting up, telling Sgt. Kirk that “[t]he welfare cut my check, I’ve been

thinking about how I was going to take care of my family, I’m behind in the rent,

and I didn’t want to see them outdoors” (James, 2000). He thought that killing

them would be better than becoming homeless.

Harrington was sentenced to life without parole.

John Battaglia

John Battaglia was born on August 2, 1955. Although his ex-wife knew he had

violent tendencies she had no idea of the extent to which he might act on them.

On May 2, 2001, while he was facing probation revocation and prison time for

violating a protective order, he shot his daughters, Mary Faith, 9, and Liberty, 6,

with a semiautomatic pistol while talking to his ex-wife on the phone.

Battaglia, who was sentenced to Death Row almost a year to the day after the

murders, visited a tattoo parlor and received tattoos of red roses in honor of his

daughters after firing the shots that would kill them. His ex-wife, Mary Jean

Pearle, helpless on the other end of the line during the killings, actually heard her

older daughter, Mary Faith, begging her father not to pull the trigger.

The Killings

Battaglia, an accountant who was out on probation for a domestic violence

conviction, thought he was going to be arrested again for violation of parole.

Witnesses stated he blamed his ex-wife for this. When he picked them up for

their weekly visit, Pearle testified that he had told their daughters he might be

arrested. She also claimed that the girls were nervous about seeing him and that

Liberty went so far as to hide under her bed. Pearle eventually talked her into

leaving with her father.

At around 7:30 p.m., Battaglia began arguing on the phone with his ex-wife. In

the background Pearle could hear Mary Faith crying, “No, Daddy, no.” She then

heard five gunshots (Anderson, 2001). When the Dallas officers broke into his

loft apartment, they discovered his deceased daughters surrounded by halfunpacked boxes and “numerous” guns and rifles (Anderson, 2001). Battaglia

was not there.

Later that night, however, he called his daughters’ phones and left the following

message: “Good night, my little babies. I hope you are resting in a different

place. I love you. I wish you had nothing to do with your mother. She was evil

and vicious and stupid” (Mervosh, 2014).

A witness, Douglas Cartmel, stated that when Pearle appeared on the scene she

was “crying and freaking out” and that “[s]he looked in really bad shape”

(Anderson, 2001).

Battaglia’s previous criminal history included two counts of assault for a

Christmas Day 1999 incident for which he received a sentence of two years’

probation and a $1,000 fine. According to Pearle’s mother, Battaglia had

“beaten” Pearle at that time. Although Pearle had limited contact with him, she

would meet him every Wednesday at a shopping center where he would pick up

his daughters to visit with them. Both girls were students at Bradfield

Elementary School. Liberty was involved in ballet and Faith played the violin

(Anderson, 2001).

The prosecutors described Battaglia as an “angry, vindictive man” who had a

“long history of violence toward his spouses” (McGonigle, 2002). According to

testimony at the trial, Pearle had called law enforcement on him twice and he

allegedly had physical altercations with a previous wife as well (Mervosh,

2014). Pat Kirlin, Assistant District Attorney, stated in his closing argument that

“if a man can do this and use his kids as pawns to get at his ex-wife, he can do

anything.”

Forty-six-yearold John David Battaglia showed no reaction when the “guilty”

verdict was read, nor did he react to his ex-wife’s emotional speech after the

verdict was read (McGonigle, 2002). Pearle proclaimed him to be one “one of

the most heinous murderers of modern time” and even compared him to Adolf

Hitler and Jeffrey Dahmer, stating that even they hadn’t killed their own children

(McGonigle, 2002). The trial testimony lasted for four days with the jury

dismissing a claim by the defense of Battaglia suffering from bipolar disorder,

which would have helped him with a mental illness defense. Some of the experts

involved in the case claimed that he may have “felt trapped by his own mistakes

and feared losing the people he loved most” (Mervosh, 2014). The jurors also

conceded that Battaglia would continue to be a “threat to society” (McGonigle,

2002) and, accordingly, sentenced him to death.

Sarah Mervosh, staff writer at the Dallas Morning News, stated that, even after

going to prison, Battaglia continued to keep track of the girls’ birthdays and kept

pictures of them in his Death Row cell. “His definition of love is tainted,” said

Denise Paquette Boots, a criminologist and associate professor at the University

of Texas at Dallas, wondering, “[h]e [Battaglia] uses that word [love], but what

does that word really mean to him?” (Mervosh, 2014)

Even though he was convicted of killing his children, Battaglia remains passive

about his role in their deaths. “I don’t feel like I killed them,” he has stated

(Mervosh, 2014). His surviving daughter, 28-year-old Christie Battaglia, thinks

he has trouble accepting responsibility for his actions. She says that “In his

mind, it’s all somebody else’s fault and ‘What can I do to get back at them?’”

(Mervosh, 2014)

At the end of his interview with Sarah Mervosh Battaglia showed no concern for

his children’s deaths and even scoffed at the idea of being upset about them,

going so far as to say, “Why would I worry about where they are now?”

Christian Longo

The case of Christian Longo of Oregon is one of the most thought-provoking

cases of filicide due to the fact that, not only did he obviously murder his family,

but the events that transpired afterwards were equally bizarre as well.

In December 2001, Longo murdered his wife Mary Jane and their three children:

2-year-old daughter Madison, 4-year-old son Zachery, and 3-year-old daughter

Sadie. The cause of death for both Mary Jane and Madison was strangling; their

bodies were then placed in suitcases and thrown into the water. As to the

remaining two victims, it was determined later that both Sadie and Zachery were

stuffed into their sleeping bags and, while still alive, also thrown into the water

with rocks attached to the bags. It would take some time before Longo was

found following the murders.

Longo became a suspect when Zachery’s body was discovered on December 19,

2001. The remains were found just a few feet from shore in the Lint Slough

close to Newport, Oregon. A few days later, on December 22, Sadie’s body was

also found in the same area by divers.

Zachery was only wearing his underwear when his body was discovered. Sadie,

found under the Lint Slough Bridge, was still tied by her ankles to a pillowcase

full of rocks. The pillowcase had cartoon characters on it. Nearby, the divers

discovered a similar pillowcase with rocks. It was determined that this one had

been tethered to Zachery. Although the cause of death for the two children was

never revealed, it was concluded they hadn’t died from any type of bodily

trauma. The autopsy report labeled their findings to be “consistent with

drowning.” Mary Jane and Madison were discovered five days after the first two

bodies were found.

By the time Mary Jane and Madison were found, Longo was already en route for

Mexico from San Francisco. He was spotted in Cancún on December 27, 2001 at

a hostel. The next day he was charged in Lincoln County, Oregon with multiple

counts of aggravated murder in the death of his family as well as unlawful flight

from a federal arrest warrant. He was finally captured in Tulum, Quintana Roo,

and taken into U.S. custody on January 14, 2002.

To make matters more intriguing, while he was in Mexico, Longo impersonated

a New York Times journalist, Michael Finkel. Oddly enough, Finkel was later

fired from his job for fabricating an unrelated story.

Although the case is a tragic one and one of the more heinous crimes in recent

history, it hasn’t inspired as many films and entertainment references as other

cases. Indeed, it wasn’t nearly as widely publicized on national news like many

other child deaths and family murders are. The upcoming film True Story,

however, is based on Finkel’s memoir and features James Franco as Christian

Longo.