James Carson and Jenn Carson; Jenn Carson.Photo: Chloe Aftel
The knock at the door startled Jenn Carson and her mother, Lynne. It was 1982 and Lynne had fled to Southern California with Jenn, then 7, out of fear that Jenn’s drug-abusing, mentally ill father and equally disturbed new wife might harm them. They weren’t expecting any visitors.
“It was the Secret Service,” Jenn, now 48, recalls. “Literally men in black.”
“Has he ever threatened to kill a president? What are his political beliefs?” they asked. “All they told her is, ‘They’re murder suspects and they were investigating him for a substantial threat.'”
In 1984, they were convicted of the murder of Keryn Barnes, 23, and were later convicted of murdering two others: Clark Stephens, 26, and John Hellyar, 30.
The couple remains in prison; both are serving 75-years-to-life sentences.
“I want people to understand that this type of shame is so corrosive,” Jenn says in this week’s issue of PEOPLE. “And that’s why I tell my story.”
‘I Have Memories of Him Unraveling’
Jenn remembers her early days with her father as idyllic.
“My perception then was he was loving,” says Jenn, who remembers him reading to her and braiding her hair. “He was fun.”
That began to change.
Shortly after her parents divorced in 1978, her father met Suzan, a well-to-do divorcee and mother of two. They married in 1979.
“Around that time, I have a lot of memories of him unraveling,” she says.
Once attentive, he began ignoring her and became a completely different man around Suzan.
“She was very dominant in the relationship,” says Jenn, who immediately had a bad feeling about Suzan.
“In my preschooler mind, she’s the wicked witch,” she says.
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Her time with them became nightmarish. “I’ve had glimpses of memories my whole life of her pushing me under bath water — like holding me under and I couldn’t breathe,” she says. “I’m in this house of horrors. She’s not feeding me. She’s telling me that I’m the devil. I’m going to go to hell. I deserve to die.”
Suzan scared her the most when she scratched her back “and left open wounds,” she says. “Five jagged nail marks.”
Michael Bear Carson and Suzan Carson.Vince Maggiora/San Francisco Chronicle via AP
Lynne took drastic action when she learned of the abuse, and that Michael and Suzan were planning to leave the country. “She’s convinced they’re going to kill her, take me, and then Suzan would kill me,” Jenn says.
For nearly five years, Lynne and Jenn were on the run, living in fear that her father and Suzan would find them.
When Jenn finally learned the whole truth about her father, including about his arrest, she wanted to know more, reading newspaper clippings she found in her mother’s dresser. She began to worry that she had inherited “monster genes” and began having nightmares about her father’s victims.
“By 9, I viewed every adult as a potential killer,” she says. “The whole world terrified me. I also feared that I would grow up and kill people.”
Thriving After Trauma
In addition to her mother, with whom she remains close, it was her stepfather, Michael Gonzales, who met Lynne in 1984, who helped Jenn heal and turn her life around.
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“He’s the knight on the white horse,” she says. “An incredible man.”
He sought counseling for Jenn, signed her up for Girl Scouts and the church choir and put her on a regular schedule. Thriving under his care, Jenn excelled in school. “He invested in me and I believe that’s why I’m okay. I was a little kid with severe childhood onset post-trauma and a severe depression, severe suicidal ideation. I was not doing well.”
After earning her doctoral degree in social work, she went on to become a trauma expert. Over the years, she has been featured on CNN, ID and NPR. She is also on the board of the American Association of Suicidology, a non-profit suicide prevention organization.
“Not only can you survive after adversity, trauma, battles with mental illness and so on, you can get help and then you can thrive,” she says. “And if someone is struggling today, get help because it can get better. It’s okay to not be okay. And it’s okay to get help because things can get better.”
Before Jenn’s 89-year-old great aunt died recently, she told Jenn how family members would ask among themselves, “What was going to happen to poor Jenny?” Jenn recalls.
According to Jenn, her aunt “told them, ‘Poor Jenny, my a–. The girl is brilliant.'”
“I think the other part of my story that I always like to share is that our children are resilient,” she says. “If we can invest with time and love, and connecting the child to the help they need, our children can overcome early trauma — and recovery is possible.”
For help, call 988 for the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, 800-4-A-CHILD for the National Child Abuse Hotline, 800-931-2237 for the National Eating Disorder Association Helpline and 800-FYI-CALL for the National Center for Victims of Crime.
source: people.com
