“All relative to psychological stuff.”
“Mm-hmm.”
“Is that because you’re… why is that, you have a good vocabulary, but it’s just kind of unusual,” Officer Moule solicited. “Are those terms that you discussed with your father about your mom’s condition?”
“I have discussed it with my father, I have discussed it with my brothers, and I have discussed it with a psychologist.”
“You go to a psychologist to help you out dealing with your mom? Or do you have…”
Gabriel jumped in. “I did for a while, for like a few weeks. I didn’t like the psychologist, though. So I quit.”
“So, you’ve had this, this has been going for about, everything was okay for the most part until five years ago?”
“My mom and dad loved each other.”
As the conversation continued, Moule prompted the teen to discuss his parents disintegrating relationship, leading Gabriel to recount the story of the family’s tumultuous trip to Disneyland and the memories that his mother uncovered during the vacation.
Officer Moule sat back in his chair. “Has your mom ever been hospitalized?”
“No. Well… she tried to kill herself in Yosemite,” Gabriel replied dryly, recalling his mother’s trip to the national park in central California.
The officer leaned in closer to the teen. “Well how long ago did that happen? Two years, three years?”
“Actually, no, it was after our other house, so it was one and a half to two years ago.” Gabriel was speaking about the family’s move from Piedmont to their current, more expansive Orinda address.
“Were you there when she tried?”
“I was at home when she called.”
“So, who was with her in Yosemite?”
“She went by herself.”
“She just drove there? By herself?” Officer Moule asked.
“She didn’t drive there by herself. She just took a bus and tried to kill herself,” Gabriel casually replied, as if attempting suicide in the national park at the base of the Sierra Nevada Mountains was an ordinary occurrence.
“Well, how did she try to kill herself?”
“Overdosed on pills.”
“And then she called home and told you guys what she did?”
“She called home and wanted to talk to my dad, and this is, like, supposedly, what she told my dad. And she says that she loves him and that she’s really sorry that she tried to kill herself, and that she’s, like, dying, or whatever.”
Officer Moule stared at the teen. A veteran at concealing his reactions, he remained stone-faced. “So, then what happened?”
“My dad called the police,” Gabriel casually explained. “And they picked her up, and she was put in a…she was at the hospital, and they were interviewing her for a…just a mental examination. And they felt like she was perfectly sensible. Like I said, she can act perfectly sane most of the time.”
“Have the police ever been out to your house?”
“Hmm-mm. Many times,” the teen replied without hesitation.
“Well, when was the first time?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Was it in the house at Piedmont?” Officer Moule asked.
“Yeah, for stuff like…mostly for my brothers to try and break up parties and shit.”
“Did Piedmont PD ever go to your house because your parents were arguing or your mother was acting strangely?”
Gabriel shook his head, indicating no.
“How about Orinda PD?”
“Orinda PD, definitely,” Gabriel nodded.
“How many times?”
“Three to five.”
“What happened the first time, if you know.”
“Oh, there were just so many complications, I can’t really remember.”
“Just pick one out,” Officer Moule nudged. “When was the last time they came out?”
“The last time they came out was last week.” Gabriel was referring to the call his father had made to 911 on October 9, when Susan moved him from the main house to the guest cottage.
“Last week?”
Gabriel went on to tell Moule the story of the previous Wednesday when he had helped his mother move his father’s belongings to the guesthouse, and the ensuing argument that led Felix to call 911. As he told the tale, his feelings toward his mother became more and more apparent, with Gabriel describing his mother as “nuts” and referring to his own life as “pretty unstable.”
As the interview progressed, Gabriel displayed signs of stress. He had difficulty sitting still in his chair and avoided direct eye contact with the officers. At times, he seemed close to tears, and other moments he appeared detached and spoke in a monotone.
“Did she talk about killing him while she was in Montana?” Officer Moule inquired.
Cupping his forehead with his hands, Gabe paused for a moment as if to think. “I’m not sure,” he uttered. “She said she was taking care of business. It sounded like it was about dad. She wanted to handle dad, I don’t know how…. To get money and stuff.”
Gabriel went on to say that his mother had actually spoken of killing his father.
“Did she say how she would kill him?” the detective asked.
The teen sat back in his chair. “Drugging him, and drowning him in the pool,” he replied. “Maybe run him over, or tampering with his car.”
“Why was she telling you all this?”
“I don’t know. She thought that, like, I agreed with her or whatever, when I was going along with what she was saying, or that, I don’t really know why she told me. She just trusted me, trusted me.”
“Did you kind of agree with her?” Officer Moule asked.
“No.”
“Did you and your dad get along all right?”
Gabriel paused. “Fairly well.”
Gabriel claimed his mother had been talking about murdering his father on and off for weeks, most recently when he was eavesdropping on the October 7 phone conversation between them during his mother’s return trip from Montana. “When she was coming back from Montana, she actually called my dad and told him what she was going to do. She threatened to shoot him with a shotgun.”
“So how did she phrase, what did she say?”
“She just said that, oh yeah, that if he didn’t let her stay in the house with me—she wanted him to be out in the cottage, and if he didn’t let that happen, let her in the house, she would kill him.”
The teen’s eyes grew wet as he recounted his father’s fear. Gabriel said his father had been so frightened by the conversation with Susan that he arranged to have police waiting at Miner Road in anticipation of her return, but after several hours, it grew too late in the evening and the officers left the property. When his mother finally arrived, “She walked right in the house. They had a nice talk. Not a nice talk, but they were calm. I was there for the whole thing,” he said.
“What were they talking about?”
“Money. And that she thought it was not fair that they had a court hearing without her.”
“And what did your dad say to that?”
“I don’t know, but it was calm. Then my dad was just trying to deal with her.”
Two days later, however, it was a different story. It was then, after Susan had Gabriel move all of Felix’s belongings to the guesthouse, that she threatened to kill him.
