Once 'glowing mother' now charged with murder

Kristina Fuelling ecstatically welcomed motherhood, according to family and friends.

That's why those close to her say they can't begin to fathom what authorities allege she did early one morning, that the 27-year-old woman intentionally drowned her 8-day-old daughter, Faith, in the sink of her Granite Bay home.

Before she gave birth, she rejoiced with her friends. She shopped for tiny dresses. She ruminated over girl names.

"It was all happiness; she was a glowing mother," said her older sister, Anna Cashman.

Cashman was one of the first to hear her sister was pregnant.

"I was pregnant at the same time," said Cashman, one of Fuelling's three siblings.

"She's the most loving person, very calm, good-natured. She is always thinking of others," she said. Fuelling never failed to call and check on her older sister during their pregnancies.

Fuelling has pleaded not guilty to two felony charges, murder and assault on a child that causes death. She faces life sentences for both charges in the Jan. 20 death.

Fuelling's husband, Nicholas, 25, was asleep when the baby drowned, according to the Placer County Sheriff's Department. After Kristina Fuelling woke him, he called 911, said Lt. Jeffrey Ausnow.

Nicholas Fuelling is not a suspect, Ausnow said.

"We're confident she acted alone," he said, but declined to say what led investigators to that conclusion. He did say Kristina Fuelling has cooperated with investigators.

Initially segregated for her safety at the jail in Auburn, Kristina Fuelling is now housed with the general population, Ausnow said, and has her next court date Feb. 21.

Prosecutors are not saying much about the case. Nor would Fuelling's attorney, Tom Johnson.

Johnson said he is looking into building a case around an insanity defense but declined to specifically discuss Fuelling's mental state. He said he has ordered blood tests to help evaluate her physical and mental condition.

He would not discuss the family's finances, but court and police records indicate they had money problems.

Her husband's business, Res-Com Environmental Inc., is cited by the Better Business Bureau for 68 complaints, most of which remain unresolved, according to Barry Goggin, the bureau's Sacramento-area manager. The complaints allege false advertising.

Nicholas Fuelling was taken to court by several creditors during the last two years, according to court records.

In 2006, the couple lost a Fair Oaks home and a Roseville condo to foreclosure.

When his wife was about six months pregnant, Nicholas Fuelling ran up a bill of $4,765 at Harrah's casino at Lake Tahoe between Oct. 19 and Oct. 22 of last year, according to Douglas County, Nev., sheriff's records. He left with the bill unpaid.

He returned to the same hotel on Oct. 24. When he attempted to check out after racking up another bill of $4,850, plus a separate $108 charge, Fuelling produced several credit cards, all denied for the amount, sheriff's spokesman Sgt. Jim Halsey said.

The hotel management encouraged him to telephone someone to relieve his debt, Halsey said. But after several calls, Fuelling was apparently out of options and the hotel management called authorities.

Fuelling was arrested on two felony counts of defrauding an innkeeper. He did not respond to an e-mail request for comment.

If Kristina Fuelling's attorney does mount an insanity defense, it would not be unusual to cite financial stress as a contributing factor, according to attorneys and therapists familiar with such cases. Using pregnancy-related mental illness as a defense is no longer unusual, they said; it's a strategy being used to transform the legal landscape.

A Houston attorney who represented Andrea Yates, the mother who drowned her five children in a bathtub in 2001, said public understanding of pregnancy-related mental illnesses is broadening.

George Parnham, who successfully appealed Yates' murder conviction, said Yates was found not guilty in a new trial based on the argument that she had postpartum psychosis, and was moved to a mental institution where she could get treatment.

"I do think the Yates case underscored the reality of this mental health issue," he said.

Postpartum depression affects an estimated 15 percent to 20 percent of new mothers, according to Postpartum Support International, a Santa Barbara-based advocacy and education group.

"There's still a stigma. There is still a lack of information on the part of medical professionals about what to do," said Diana Lynn Barnes, a Tarzana clinical psychotherapist who has testified in trials around the country.

She noted crucial differences between postpartum depression, which in extreme cases could drive the mother to harm herself, and the rarer diagnosis of postpartum psychosis.

Only 1 percent of those who become depressed actually suffer postpartum psychosis, Barnes said. An even smaller portion of women are driven by voices, delusions or other breaks with reality to kill their children, she said.

Family or personal histories of psychiatric illness are risk factors, she said. Therapists also look for factors that could make a woman more vulnerable, such as poor health care and financial problems, Barnes said.

For Fuelling's friends, it seems impossible to equate the woman they know with the crime she's accused of. All they can talk about is the joy she felt at being a mother.

Kim Martinez attended California State University, Sacramento, with Fuelling, who majored in communications, and remains a close friend.

"She is a gentle, compassionate and loving person. She was very excited about motherhood," Martinez said.

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