‘I’ll never get to take him to the first grade’
This story was originally published in The State on January 21, 1996.
Missy and Davis Daniel moved from their home because they could not stand to live just down the street from the in-home day care where their baby girl was murdered.
Lindy and Gary Colson visit a small church cemetery near their home whenever they need to talk to their baby boy, Parker. The Colsons find it hard to trust people since Parker died while at day care. They have a new baby, but won't leave her with anyone.
Catherine Maier entrusted her son to the same day care where the Daniel and Colson babies would die. When her son suffered brain damage from being violently shaken, child-protection workers focused suspicion on her and took her child away.
Eventually, the day-care operator would be charged with injuring Maier's son, Asher, six months after the Colson baby died. Maier is still fighting to regain custody of her toddler.
This is the private pain that endures for three families a year after the woman they trusted with their children was convicted of murder. Gail Cutro is serving life for killing Ashlan Daniel. After proving that, prosecutors decided against trying Cutro for Parker's death or for Asher's brain injury from shaken-baby syndrome.
``I don't think I'm ever going to get my soul back.''
-- Gary Colson
Ceramic angels stand guard around Parker Colson's grave where the tombstone and flowers share space with his red wagon and baseball bat.
Lindy Colson struggles with the pain of not being able to watch her son grow up: ``I'll never get to take him to the first grade. I'll never get to watch my son graduate from high school and go on to college, give me grandchildren. She took that from us.''
The Colsons find some comfort in Cutro's prison term and in the belief that they might have saved other children.
``In my opinion, she's a serial killer,'' said Lindy Colson, 30. ``The three infants she kept from the time Parker died, all of them are dead or hurt. She had already agreed to keep another infant after Ashlan's death. I'm sure that would have been her next victim.''
It's no coincidence, Colson said, that Asher and Ashlan were exactly 4 months, 18 days old when they were hurt.
Parker would have died at that exact age had he not been with his parents for the Christmas holidays, his mother says. Parker returned to the Cutro home on Monday, Jan. 4, 1993 -- the day he died, 4 months, 29 days old.
Gary Colson, 40, plays with his daughter on their living-room carpet and fights back tears for his son. Parker's photograph hangs on a wall only feet away. In it, the little boy is wearing a University of Miami baseball cap like the one his dad wore when he played for the Hurricanes. That tiny cap is now with Parker in his casket.
Parker's death means 20-month-old Kasey won't have a typical childhood, and the Colsons won't have the lifestyle they planned.
``She will never see a day care,'' Gary Colson said.
The Colsons gave up an income so that Lindy could stay home with Kasey. ``The weekend stays with friends? We've already said, they'll come here or she won't enjoy it,'' Gary Colson said. ``I feel bad for Kasey.''
He also feels bad for his wife, who has been employed and independent-minded since she was 16. Lindy Colson is now a stay-home mom.
Going out in public is hard. They're suspicious when someone approaches Kasey. ``You just tense up because you fear they're going to touch your child,'' Lindy Colson said. ``It destroyed the basic trust of the human race.''
She trusted Gail Cutro until June 30, 1994, when prosecutors had to tell the Colsons and the Daniels that they suspected Cutro of murder and had to exhume their babies for evidence.
It had been 1 1/2 years since Parker's death and the grieving mother was just coming to terms with it. Local doctors had told the Colsons his death was natural but unexplained.
``I just wanted to hold him again,'' Lindy Colson said. ``He was still my son.''
That discovery rocked her. Until that wrenching day in the 5th Circuit solicitor's office, Cutro had mourned with Lindy Colson over Parker's death from sudden infant death syndrome. The women attended SIDS support groups together, organized a SIDS fund-raiser and appeared on local television to help other parents survive SIDS.
The Colsons knew an investigation was under way. ``I remember saying to Gail, `Just hang in there. The truth will come out and it'll all be over with,' '' Lindy Colson said. ``Every time I had a suspicion, it was put to rest.''
Colson was pregnant with Kasey when Cutro became a suspect in Parker's death. But authorities and her husband didn't tell her for fear the shock might cause a miscarriage.
Gary Colson said he didn't believe from the outset that his son died of SIDS, but confided only in his sister. ``I was hoping for (Lindy) that it would have been SIDS . . . so she could go on and still trust people.''
``Why? We ask God that question an awful lot.''
-- Missy Daniel
In the year since the trial, Missy and Davis Daniel have had a son and are trying to rebuild a family life.
The only explanation they've come up with for the loss of their daughter is that she fell victim to a woman with a dark heart. ``She's not sick,'' Missy Daniel said of Cutro, ``she's evil.''
The couple always doubted Cutro's account of how she put a sleepy Ashlan down for an afternoon nap only to find she wasn't breathing a short while later. Missy Daniel testified that Ashlan always fought sleep. The baby never would have dozed off just by being laid down.
``There was a lot of anger there, along with a lot of suspicion,'' said Davis Daniel. ``There's a lot of anger there still.''
``The only relief there is,'' added his 28-year-old wife, ``is that she can no longer hurt another child. There had to be a stop to this. We did it for our daughter and other children.''
They did more than take the stand against Cutro. The Daniels helped build the criminal case.
Missy Daniel played along when Cutro asked for some of Ashlan's clothing as a remembrance. She substituted someone else's yellow gown, though Cutro would tell her it smelled like Ashlan. Once, Daniel wore a hidden tape recorder so police could listen to a conversation with Cutro.
Missy Daniel told investigators that Cutro went to Ashlan's grave almost daily and talked. Prosecutors, thinking she might be confessing, seriously considered hiring a lip reader who would stand nearby and relay her words to police. Deputy Solicitor Johnny Gasser said he even consulted with the U.S. attorney's office about the legality of bugging a grave.
The Daniels say they won't put their son in the care of a stranger at least until he can talk. They support tighter regulations, including fingerprint checks of employees, mandatory CPR and first-aid training and unannounced inspections.
``I'm not here to slam all home day cares,'' Missy Daniel said. ``I'm sure there are some good ones. We just happen to pick one in a million.''
``They need to be protected. They can't cry out.''
-- Catherine Maier
Catherine Maier is happy that her son is alive and healing. He is a healthy, active child, that his mother describes as ``mildly developmentally delayed'' as a result of his injury. His speech is slightly impaired, but his vocabulary has grown rapidly in recent months, Maier said.
Despite Cutro's conviction, Maier, 26, can't get her son back. She's mad at the Department of Social Services, the state's child-protection agency, and about the state's lax day-care regulations.
Maier is fighting the agency that restricts her to twice-a-month supervised visits with her son, who will celebrate his third birthday in February.
Asher Maier was shaken violently in Cutro's day care, experts in shaken-baby syndrome testified during the trial. Until criminal investigators talked to shaken-baby experts and interviewed parents who saw Asher that Wednesday, June 23, 1993, child-protection workers blamed Catherine Maier for hurting her son.
During the criminal probe, the agency looked into the matter again and decided Cutro was the culprit.
A Family Court judge will have to untangle the conflicting findings by different child-protection officials and determine whether Asher Maier will return to live with his mother.
Meanwhile, Asher is in the temporary custody of his paternal grandparents. His parents, Catherine and Chad Maier, have divorced.
Social-services officials won't discuss the case because state law bars disclosure of child-abuse investigations.
Maier, however, is bare-knuckled about her criticisms. She says that caseworkers are ignorant, incompetent and illiterate, and that the agency is arrogant and destructive.
``They say that their position is to reunite families,'' she said. ``DSS, if anything, has . . . torn this family apart.''
Maier also accuses the agency of playing with her emotions.
``They say, `When you do this, we'll give you more visitation.' I do the things, then they move the line,'' Maier said. ``In other words, if you kiss our butt, we'll let you see your son a little bit more. Actually, Gail Cutro can see her children more than I can.''
Though sworn testimony indicates Cutro shook Asher, Maier was a logical suspect for social services to focus on.
She's a recovering cocaine addict whose first husband divorced her alleging that she physically abused him. She met Chad Maier at an Narcotics Anonymous meeting. In the weeks before Asher was hurt, her second marriage was falling apart and she admitted to ``rage attacks.''
In court, she said she didn't fight her first husband's allegations because she just wanted to end the marriage. Maier also said the rage attacks were reactions to birth-control pills that she quickly discontinued.
She's trying to straighten out her life and has hired an attorney to help her persuade social services that she's a fit mother.
Besides fighting her own battle, Maier has become a day-care regulation advocate.
She has written letters to the child-protection agency, to the former and current governors and to the Joint Legislative Committee on Children and Families.
She hopes to spare other parents from the grief the Colsons, the Daniels and the Maiers have endured. ``Parker Colson and Ashlan Daniel didn't have a chance to say, `Help me, please,' '' Maier said. ``My son didn't have a chance to say, `Mom, help me.' ''
Maier circulated a petition in support of legislation requiring fingerprinting all child-care employees. That bill became law last year.
``How many signatures does it take to protect our children?'' Maier asked. ``How many signatures do we have to have before somebody . . . opens their eyes to the fact that our children are in danger in day care?''
This story was originally published July 27, 2016 at 10:59 AM with the headline "‘I’ll never get to take him to the first grade’."