ORANGE COUNTY–Report: Grandmother Likely Fired Gun in Murder-Suicide

Posted by Sandra On December - 22 - 2009

Report: Grandmother Likely Fired Gun in OC Murder-Suicide

KTLA News

1:13 PM PST, December 17, 2009

Catherine Fontaine, 4 and Julia Fontaine, 2 (Courtesy John York)

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SAN CLEMENTE — Orange County sheriff’s investigators believe a grandmother carried out the murder-suicide in San Clemente that claimed the lives of herself, her daughter and two young granddaughters.

Elizabeth Fontaine, 38, her daughters Catherine Fontaine, 4, and Julia Fontaine, 2, and their grandmother Bonnie Hoult, 67, were found dead Monday afternoon in a rented home where they were staying in a gated community in the upscale Talega community, said Jim Amormino, a spokesman for the Orange County Sheriff’s Department.

Amormino said a gun-residue test was inconclusive because Bonnie Hoult and Elizabeth Fontaine died next to one another and the gunpowder residue was found on the hands of both. However. it’s believed that the grandmother likely pulled the trigger.

Amormino says that a deputy sheriff arrived at the home just moments before the gunshots were fired to do a welfare check. He says that Hoult was outside with her 4 year old granddaughter when she saw the deputy and walked briskly in the house. Within seconds, the deputy heard gunshots inside the home.

An unidentified sheriff’s homicide investigator told the OC Register what investigators believe happened.

About 1:30 p.m. Monday, Hoult was outside the home on Calle Sonador, holding Catherine. She was standing next to a black Lexus SUV registered to her daughter in front of the house when a female deputy pulled up.

Hoult, apparently thinking the deputy was coming to take away the children, bolted into the house through the open garage door. She slammed it and locked the doors to the house.

Based on what investigators have been able to piece together, they believe that seconds later, while the deputy was standing outside, Hoult – gun in hand – walked up to Elizabeth Fontaine, who was cradling Julia in her arms.

Hoult put the muzzle in the toddler Julia’s mouth and fired once.

Fontaine then opened her mouth, and Hoult shot her.

The grandmother and former schoolteacher then grabbed Catherine and shot her in the mouth.

All four bodies were found intertwined, just beyond a front door decorated with a Christmas wreath.

The children’s bags had been packed and were sitting at the bottom of the stairs.

The gun belonged to Hoult, a retired psychologist, who stayed home with the children while their mother attended a custody hearing.

Earlier that day, Orange County Superior Court Commissioner Thomas H. Schulte had indicated he would likely grant temporary custody to Fontaine’s sister-in-law and ordered Fontaine to return to court with her daughters in the afternoon for a final ruling, said John York, an attorney for the children’s father, Jason Fontaine.

When Elizabeth Fontaine failed to show up, York and the children’s father realized there was a 3:30 p.m. flight from John Wayne Airport to Houston and notified the judge, York said.

Schulte issued a final order granting temporary custody to the paternal aunt and told the aunt to drive to the airport and contact deputies at the sheriff’s substation there, York said.

Minutes from the hearing confirm that Schulte gave the sister-in-law custody and gave her the authority to contact sheriff’s deputies to help keep the children off the flight.

The family never went to the airport, however. The bodies were found shortly after 1:30 p.m., the hour they were all due back in court.

Fontaine moved to Houston last month with the children after a bitter custody dispute in which she repeatedly accused her ex-husband of molesting the two girls.

A court psychologist interviewed the older daughter, but didn’t find that molestation had occurred, according to court documents.

The court eventually awarded primary custody to Elizabeth Fontaine, but allowed her ex-husband unmonitored visits.

Elizabeth Fontaine reopened the custody case in Texas, had the children examined by new psychologists and renewed her allegations of molestation with authorities there, records show.

Amormino said the children’s father is not a suspect in the case. “The father was nowhere near the crime scene,” he said.

Amormino said the victims were staying with friends Kevin and Leslie Herbert, who lived in the rented house on the small cul-de-sac with their young son.

Just an hour before sheriff’s deputies came to the house on Calle Sonador, next-door neighbor Rebecca Vandehei, 43, said she heard a high-pitched cry from what sounded like a young girl and wondered what was going on.

“It was like someone was waking up from a nap or didn’t like something,” she said.

Vandehei said Herbert told her that he realized something was wrong, got out of the house and called police.

“He had heard something that bothered him and told his wife to leave,” Vandehei said. “He heard them talking about some plans and shortly after that police came.”

The last homicide report in town also involved a family massacre. Relatives who hadn’t heard from relatives broke into a home in another gated community in May 2008 and found five decomposing bodies.

Authorities said Margrit Ucar, 48, shot her husband and herself, while their 21-year-old twin daughters and the family’s 72-year-old maternal grandmother died from prescription drug overdoses in an apparent suicide pact. The motive has not been determined.

KTLA-TV, Los Angeles

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AbusedChildren Says:

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Posted on December 22nd, 2009 at 2:27 pm
Will it damage an Oriental rug to lay it on top of wall to wall carpet and put furniture on top of it? | Rug buying guide Says:

[...] DreamCatchers For Abused Children » ORANGE COUNTY–Report … [...]

Posted on December 23rd, 2009 at 9:14 pm
Jason Fontaine Says:

This is Jason Fontaine. I am the father of Julia and Catherine Fontaine. The two beutifuly little girls that were murdered by their monther and grandmother on Dec. 14th 2009.

I am devistated and crushed that my two beautiful and wonderful little girls lives were taken by two sick individuals that cared more about keeping them from me than focusing on making sure they lived happy healthy lives. There is nothing that pains me more or haunts me more every night. I used followed every court order and did everyhting I could to try and protect my little girls. In the end none of it mattered. I spent every penny I had, put myself through every phychological evaluation possible (through court appointed psychologists) to prove that I had nothing but the best interestes in mind for my little girls. In the end these two sick individuals refused to listed to the experts and decided, arbitrarily, to take these wonderful little girls lives.

I am forever going to remember the good times I had with them and the wonderful things that they had to offer the world. I am also going to be haunted, every day, how their lives were cut so short by two sick people who cared more about themselves than the two little angels whose lives they took.

Jason Fontaine
jfont989@gmail.com

Posted on January 1st, 2010 at 6:54 am
Dr. Ann Blake-Tracy Says:

Who better to be hooked on antidepressants than a retired psychologist? Maybe a retired psychiatrist? When those in the profession are telling me that at least 75% of them take these drugs, I will take bets that Bonnie Hoult had been on them for some time.

All it would take for a mother and a grandmother to both make false allegations of abuse (generally false allegations of sexual abuse) against a loved one and for both to then be complicit in committing something so horrifyingly violent as this murder/suicide is what I have seen with much regularity over the past two decades – both a mother and a daughter sharing one thing – a prescription for an antidepressant. Moms hooked on these drugs will constantly encourage their daughters to take them.

The ONLY grandmothers I have seen in two decades of tracking murder/suicide cases who have taken the lives of their grandchildren are those on antidepressants. And the VERY LARGE MAJORITY of mothers who take the lives of their own children (from Susan Smith to Andrea Yates) are under the influence of antidepressants. You can find a long list of documented cases here: http://www.ssristories.com

How do these drugs produce both false allegations and violent murder/suicides?

The antidepressant increases serotonin which in turn produces very vivid and horrifying nightmares, often both sexual and very violent in nature. The nightmares are SO VIVID that the patient begins to believe they are “remembering” abuse that happened which they have forgotten. None of it is real – only in the individual’s mind! But to the patient it seems all too real making them very convincing to others because they believe so firmly that this false reality actually did happen to them or a loved one. Because of this false accusations of sexual abuse have always been a very common adverse reaction to antidepressants. [I discussed this at length explaining all of the chemical reactions that cause it in my book that first came out in 1994.]

According to the judge in this case these false allegations had been ongoing for some time which should have served as a warning so that additional steps could be taken to prevent this latest tragedy. IF ONLY SOMEONE HAD BEEN AWARE OF THE CHEMICAL ADVERSE REACTIONS TO ANTIDEPRESSANTS THAT PRODUCE THESE FALSE ACCUSATIONS OF ABUSE!! With that knowledge the strong possibility of progressive paranoia which could then lead to a murder/suicide based on these vivid false drug-induced beliefs could have been considered – even expected. Patients who survive these reactions will often use the words, “I had no choice!” This is because based on their false belief system induced by the drugs they believed firmly they had no other choices.

These tragedies all need to end, but will not until the world wakes up to the deadly effects of these most popular prescription drugs – antidepressants! These drugs are so similar in action to LSD or PCP! [Yes, that statement can be documented scientifically and has been used successfully in court evidence in wrongful death cases brought against the manufacturers in these antidepressant-induced murder/suicide cases.] I would hope that Jason Fontaine can take this information and fight the battle for truth that his daughters can no longer fight for themselves. Although it is tragically too late to save little Catherine or Julia or the Yates children or the Smith children or so many more, as the truth comes out it will save the lives of many more innocent children. Seeking justice for their deaths and learning from what happened to them is the greatest gift we can give these children at this point.

Ann Blake-Tracy, Executive Director,
International Coalition for Drug Awareness
http://www.drugawareness.org – http://www.ssristories.com

Posted on January 6th, 2010 at 7:53 pm
Rob Washington Says:

Jason Fontaine has recently commented that he’s not aware of Bonnie Hoult or Elizabeth Fontaine having taken antidepressants.

Comment from Jason Fontaine

Posted on January 7th, 2010 at 11:29 pm