Mother guilty of kids’ murder
STEVENSON, Wash. – A Vancouver woman who led police to the bodies of her two daughters in a rock quarry nearly a year ago pleaded guilty Thursday to two counts of first-degree murder in a plea deal that will send her to prison for 63 years.
Charlene Dorcy had originally been charged with aggravated murder, which could have carried a sentence of life in prison without parole, or else the death sentence. Prosecutors had earlier decided not to pursue the death penalty.
By pleading guilty to the lesser charges, Dorcy, 39, will still spend the bulk of her life in prison, said her attorney, Chris Lanz – but she will avoid the emotional toil of a long trial.
On June 12, 2004, Dorcy led detectives to an abandoned rock quarry deep inside the Gifford Pinchot National Forest, where the bodies of her 2- and 4-year-old daughters were found.
Dorcy later told investigators she had shot her daughters multiple times with her husband’s .22-caliber rifle.
Diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic when she was a teenager, Dorcy had been taking medication but had stopped the treatment roughly four years before the murders in favor of herbal remedies, her husband Robert Dorcy has said.
The case against Dorcy was postponed several times because of questions regarding her competence to stand trial. In October, a Skamania County judge ordered her committed to a hospital and treated with anti-psychotic medication for six months. Since the treatment, doctors have asserted that she is competent.
During Thursday’s court hearing, Dorcy – choked by tears – delivered a rambling statement that talked about injustices against animals and Jews, but did not mention her children.
“Unless you are a vegetarian, every time you eat meat you’re a murderer,” she said.
In between sobs, she raged against holding animals in zoos: “I know how they feel,” she said.
Asked to comment on Dorcy’s statement, Skamania County Prosecutor Peter Banks said: “One thing we’ve never heard from her is that she’s sorry.”
“I have no doubt she knew that what she was doing was wrong,” Banks said of the murders.
Roughly one hour after the murder, Dorcy stopped in this tiny town perched above the Columbia River and called her sister-in-law from a pay telephone to confess to the crime, prosecutors and Dorcy’s husband have said. She then drove to a police station in her hometown of Vancouver and asked to lead detectives to her children’s bodies.
Lanz, Dorcy’s attorney, was asked by reporters whether his client felt remorse.
“She did shed tears – the cause of those emotions only she can know,” Lanz replied.
Prosecutor Peter Banks said that the earliest Dorcy could be released is at the age of 95 – effectively a life sentence.