Fight To Keep Children Away From Killer Is Lost
SEATTLE (AP) — Trisha Conlon’s motherly instinct seems reasonable: she does not want her teenage boys living with a woman who shot and killed her own daughters in their sleep 20 years ago.
But that will happen on Sunday because of a bizarre and convoluted custody dispute with her former husband, John P. Cushing Jr., a retired Marine fighter pilot.
Mr. Cushing, who lives on Vashon Island south of Seattle, is back together with his first wife, Kristine, who used a .38-caliber handgun to kill their daughters, who were 4 and 8, at their home in Orange County, Calif., in 1991.
The killings shocked the well-to-do community of Laguna Niguel. Many wondered how Kristine Cushing — who seemed like a “super-mom,” ferrying the girls to music, soccer, dance and the orthodontist as her husband was on military assignments overseas — could snap so tragically. She blamed a bad reaction to Prozac for the killings, was found not guilty by reason of insanity and served nearly four years in a mental institution.
After a decade of psychiatric monitoring, Ms. Cushing received an unconditional release from the State of California in 2005, when the authorities determined that she posed no risk. But that has done little to soothe Ms. Conlon. After learning that Ms. Cushing had returned to Mr. Cushing’s home, Ms. Conlon went to court to alter the parenting plan for the two sons she had with him.
“I just don’t understand how a person could have marital relations with the person who killed their children,” Ms. Conlon said. “It just doesn’t make sense to me.”
But the court ruled against Ms. Conlon.
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