“MeLisa: ‘Will you take my kids ... ?’ - Pekin Daily Times” plus 1 more |
| MeLisa: ‘Will you take my kids ... ?’ - Pekin Daily Times Posted: PEKIN, Ill. — The woman who MeLisa Cleary stayed with in the weeks prior to her death told jurors Wednesday in the Daniel K. Cleary murder trial that two weeks before her death MeLisa asked her and her fiance for their help. "She asked to speak to us — she had a very serious face," said Nicole Simpson, MeLisa's friend and boss. "She said, 'If anything ever happens to me will you take my kids?'" Simpson said she asked MeLisa if something more had happened in her relationship with her husband, Daniel Cleary, who reportedly had previously told MeLisa that, "I'll never let you out of this marriage — I'll kill you first. No one else will ever have you." After being asked to care for her children, Simpson said, "I was starting to get worried about her well-being." Daniel is accused of killing MeLisa on June 6, 2008, as she prepared to move out of the marital home permanently and seek a divorce. She had asked Simpson if she could stay there with her on June 5 and then permanently. Simpson and her fiance added MeLisa to their cellphone plan so she would be able to call for help if she needed to — using a phone that she kept turned off at the Cleary home and hidden in her youngest daughter's bedroom so Daniel would not find it, said Simpson. Simpson said that the last time she spoke with MeLisa was at about 2:30 p.m. on June 6. MeLisa had gone to the home to pack her bags while Daniel was at work. MeLisa called and, "She was very upset, crying, almost hysterical," said Simpson. "She said he was coming home early from work. "I tried to calm her. I asked her if she wanted me to come pick her up. She said if I was there when Daniel came home it would make it worse." At 7:10 p.m. Simpson called the Cleary home. Daniel answered and said MeLisa was asleep. She said she asked Daniel to have MeLisa call her when she woke up. "I'll have her call if she wakes up," said Simpson of Daniel's answer. Simpson said he made a little laugh as he said it. Simpson called the house again at 10 p.m. and there was no answer. MeLisa had her bags at the door when her husband came home during her last conversation with Simpson, said. She was supposed to arrive at Simpson's home by 5:30 or 6 p.m., but she never showed. "I slept in (MeLisa's) room that night," she said crying. "I wanted to know when she showed up." Daniel called Simpson on the day MeLisa's vehicle was found and asked if she had the spare keys. He never mentioned MeLisa and didn't sound worried — he was only concerned with the vehicle, said Simpson. Simpson went to the Cleary home on June 8 where friends and family had gathered. Daniel was washing dishes. Simpson asked how he was doing. Simpson said that Daniel responded, "I'm fine. I don't know what all the fuss is about. She's fine." Everyone else gathered there was worried about MeLisa, said Simpson. Defense attorney Kirk Bode asked Simpson about a written statement she gave to Tazewell County Sheriff's Detective Jim Brown. Bode questioned Simpson about personal conversations she and MeLisa had about MeLisa's marriage and problems she had with Daniel. Bode asked her if MeLisa ever talked about family vacations. Simpson said she remembers that they went to California one time. "They had good times," she said. Bode asked who was watching who. In her testimony Wednesday, Simpson told the court that Daniel was watching MeLisa, checking on her at parties and calling her frequently to control her. Simpson said she had even been ordered by Daniel to go to the rest room with MeLisa at a restaurant one time when they were out for his birthday. "You said he would watch her," said Bode. "Were you watching him?" Simpson said she had been. At a gathering at Simpson's parents' home she said Daniel would not let her stand on the opposite side of the barbecue pit, or watch her daughter ride a horse — he insisted she be right with him. At one point when Simpson and MeLisa were in the house talking, he kept walking into the house staring at them. In regards to her testimony, Bode asked if anyone else was present to verify statements by MeLisa to Simpson. Simpson said no. "So basically it is coming down to your word — right?" said Bode. Bode asked why she didn't call the police. She said MeLisa had said that calling the police would just make things worse. He also asked why she made no reference to any of the statements MeLisa made to her about her fear of Daniel or observations Simpson had made of Daniel on her own. On March 8, 2009, Simpson wrote a letter to Tazewell County State's Attorney Stewart Umholtz saying that MeLisa had asked her to take care of her children if anything happened to her, but made no mention of the threats against MeLisa by Daniel. "It wasn't relevant to why I was writing him," said Simpson, explaining that the goal of her letter was to have the children stay with her. Two witnesses testified who knew MeLisa for the four weeks prior to her death. They each saw her on three weekends at Tops and Tails in East Peoria when she went there with her sisters on weekends. Paul Robertson testified that he and MeLisa became friends at Tops and Tails and talked on one occasion about her problems with Daniel. He said MeLisa said her marriage was rocky and that her husband was very controlling. "When I met her she said she hadn't partied because she had been on lock down for years," he said. One night, said Robertson, MeLisa said she had again told her husband that she wanted a divorce. She said Daniel was calm — not angry like he had been on previous occasions she told him she wanted out and he had threatened to kill her. "She was a little freaked out by (his calmness)," he said. Robertson said he didn't take Daniel's threats very seriously. "I thought they were false threats." Bode asked about MeLisa's activities at the bar and if she ever had any problems there. Robertson said there was a man who kept hitting on her one night who kept following her around. He said the man was acting creepy and flirting with her. MeLisa didn't like him. Stephanie Sanford also met MeLisa at Tops and Tails in the month preceding her death and they became friends quickly. She said when she called MeLisa the first time, a man started screaming at her not to call the house and ask for MeLisa again. MeLisa, said Sanford, called back about an hour later and apologized for Daniel's behavior and said, "He is crazy." Sanford said MeLisa said he had hurt her before, but didn't say how. In a conversation outside the bar, Sanford asked MeLisa why she didn't leave Daniel. MeLisa told her Daniel had said he would kill her if she tried to leave. At 5 p.m. June 6, MeLisa called Sanford and said she was getting the last of the bags and was ready to leave. Sanford said she heard a man in the background yelling, "Get off the phone," and the line suddenly went dead. Under cross examination by Bode, Sanford told the court that there was a man one time at Tops and Tails who kept following MeLisa and Sanford outside when they went to smoke a cigarette. She said the man even grabbed her arm one time. She said MeLisa just blew him off. Borrke Morman, a day care client of MeLisa, said MeLisa asked her on one occasion to take bags of clothes out of the house for her so she could have them later at Simpson's home. Morman did. On June 6, Morman picked up her daughter from MeLisa's day care at 2:45 p.m. MeLisa looked visibly upset. "I gave her a hug," she said. "I just had a bad feeling something was wrong." The next day she called Daniel and he said he didn't know where MeLisa was. "He said, 'It's kind of creepy, isn't it?'" said Morman. This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php |
| 'A tragic story': Mom tried to kill kids with carbon monoxide, police say - Detroit News Posted: [fivefilters.org: unable to retrieve full-text content] It was the final and perhaps most gruesome of Yenglin's acts of abuse toward the children, according to Oakland Circuit Court records that show she assaulted one with a wrench, beat others with clothes hangers and shoved one boy onto the floor so hard it ... |
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