Читать книгу Parents Who Kill - Shocking True Stories of The World's Most Evil Parents - Carol Anne Davis - Страница 10

Unlike many women who are charged with neonaticide, Caroline – born in June 1964 – was from a good, loving family. She left school at 16 and went to college where she did a course in community care. Attractive and well liked, she went on to work in health administration and, at 22, began dating Paul Faraway, the son of a teacher and a judge’s clerk, who made sporting rifles for a gunsmith. The following year they set up home together in Essex and got engaged.

Throughout the rest of the 1980s and the early 1990s, the couple’s lives were comparatively uncomplicated. But, in the summer of 1993, Caroline’s best friend Alison had a recurrence of the cancer which she’d been treated for in 1991. She began to feel tired all the time and didn’t respond to chemotherapy. Later, surgeons had to remove her ovaries.

In March 1994, Caroline realised that she was pregnant (she’d conceived in January) but didn’t tell anyone and tried to put it to the back of her mind. She knew that Alison had wanted children but could no longer have them, so perhaps on a subconscious level she didn’t want to upset her ailing friend. She continued to visit Alison in hospital, though she sometimes had to cut the visits short as she was deeply distraught at how badly illness had ravaged her.

Caroline could see that her friend wasn’t going to get better – but Alison didn’t realise this and still made plans for the future. But by May 1994, she was so ill that she was moved to a hospice, where she lost her sight. Caroline continued to visit her friend, though it was harrowing to see the previously vibrant clothes designer lying motionless and unable to recognise anyone. The following month, Alison died aged 31.

Caroline was overwhelmed by the death, and had crying jags which lasted for hours at a time. This went on for week after week. She began to sleep for 11 hours at a stretch, a common symptom of clinical depression. Her employers were so concerned that they offered her compassionate leave.

Her boyfriend arranged for her to accompany him and his brothers on holiday to America, but in the weeks leading up to the trip Caroline continued to behave oddly, sleeping for long periods, eating more than usual and looking despondent. No one knew that by now she was almost nine months pregnant as she wore layers of baggy clothes. She later said that she’d had a dream in which Alison said that she was lonely and wanted the baby for company, and this convinced Caroline that the baby would be born dead. Her relationship with Paul was going through a difficult period and they had stopped having sex so she was able to hide the fact that her previously flat stomach was now heavy and round.