Conn. mom’s hubby seeks divorce delay
The Long Island mom charged with murdering her twin toddlers said she killed the girls with her “bare hands” and wanted to join them by drowning in the ocean, court documents alleged Friday.
Tenia Campbell, 24, made the chilling confession during a frantic phone call with her mom, Vanessa McQueen, around 2 p.m. Thursday, McQueen said in a signed statement to police obtained by the Daily News.
“Tenia was hysterical, crying. She kept saying she was sorry but she didn’t want to live anymore,” said McQueen’s statement, filed in court by Suffolk County prosecutors.
Asked where her adorable 2-year-old daughters Jasmine and Jaida were, Campbell claimed they were “already dead,” the statement said.
“I killed them with my bare hands,” the Medford mom told her Mastic Beach-based mother, who instantly used another phone to dial 911.
“All Tenia would say was that ‘It’s too late. I killed my babies, and now I have to be with them,’ ” McQueen told police. “At one point she said she was going to find the ocean and walk into it and drown so she could be with her babies in heaven.”
McQueen said Campbell had been having a “tough week” and was “acting very irrational and angry.”
Neighbor Aleshia Pike told The News Campbell had been “struggling” as a single mom and was facing eviction from the apartment where she’d been living with her kids for the past six months.
A man who identified himself as her landlord said a court date for the pending eviction was set for July 10.
In her statement to police, McQueen said her daughter had “a very long history of mental disorders.”
She said Campbell, who worked as a home health aide, was diagnosed with bipolar disorder as a teen and battled depression and anxiety, according to the statement.
Suffolk County Police officials said Friday that Campbell was patched into a 12minute call with a 911 dispatcher Thursday afternoon and told the operator her daughters “were already deceased.”
Police jumped into action, using “telephonic GPS” to track Campbell’s location with the hope it wasn’t too late to save all three members of the tragic trio.
When they finally found Campbell standing near the entrance to the Montauk County Park Third House Nature Center, she started “screaming at officers to shoot her,” police said.
Officers found the twins still tucked in their car seats in a nearby Chrysler minivan, suffering from cardiac arrest at the end of the frantic 90-minute Medford to Montauk manhunt.
They attempted resuscitation, but the tiny girls were pronounced dead at Stony Brook Southampton Hospital, authorities said.
“Jasmine and Jaida’s lives were cut short in the most tragic way imaginable,” Suffolk County Police Commissioner Geraldine Hart said at a Friday press conference.
“The girls had no outward signs of trauma, and autopsies will be performed today to determine the exact cause of death,” Hart said.
Campbell also is the mother of a 4-year-old son who was found safe Thursday in the care of his father, authorities said.
The Medford mom was charged with two counts of second-degree murder and covered her face as she was escorted in handcuffs by police, according to video obtained by WPIX 11. The estranged husband of a missing Connecticut mom asked that their divorce case be halted Friday — the same day a judge barred him from any contact with his girlfriend.
In a motion filed in Connecticut court, Fotis Dulos’ lawyers said there’s “no equitable way” to proceed with the tumultuous twoyear divorce because Jennifer Farber Dulos’ disappearance deprives the homebuilding husband of his right to cross-examination and discovery, the Hartford Courant reported.
A judge did not immediately rule on the request.
The move came two days after Fotis and his lead lawyer Norm Pattis appeared at a hearing in the divorce and asked for court permission to discuss a confidential child custody report with investigators probing the disappearance of his wife (photo).
The estranged husband, 51, had only supervised visitation with his five kids prior to Jennifer’s disappearance and now is barred from any contact in the wake of his June 1 arrest.
“Obviously, Fotis wants to see his children,” Pattis said in a Friday statement to the Stamford Advocate. “We will address that in due course. In the meantime, we do not see how the divorce action can fairly and equitably proceed in her absence. Her counsel continues to chest thump in the apparent absence of a client. We are asking the court to stop the wasteful charade.”
Earlier Friday, a Superior Court judge granted Fotis’ girlfriend Michelle Troconis’ request for an order barring Fotis and his lawyers from contacting her. The judge also granted her motion seeking permission to travel out of state from June 30 to July 17.
Fotis sought permission to reach out to Troconis, but it was one-sided, and the judge shut him down.
He and Troconis, 44, are both charged with evidence tampering and hindering prosecution in the probe of Jennifer’s disappearance.