Tuesday, December, 9, 2003
Visit to dad ends in murder-suicide
Children's mother said they feared their father and didn't like going to see him.
By BILL RAMS, JOHN McDONALD and ERIC CARPENTER
The Orange County Register
Barbara Miller of Brea retrieved the mail at 10 a.m. Saturday and found a letter no mother should have to read.
The typewritten, single- spaced pages from her son, Todd Vernon of Santa Clara, began: "If you don't already know, I have taken my life, along with Nadine's and the kids."
The letter launched frantic attempts in Orange County and Santa Clara to stop Vernon from hurting anybody.
But it was too late.
Todd Vernon shot and killed his three children - Amber, 12, and her twin brothers Matthew and Robert, both 10 - with a .357 magnum while they slept in their beds at his Santa Clara home.
He also turned the gun on his second wife, Nadine Nunes Vernon, before killing himself.
His letter to his mother explained that his second wife, Nadine, was going to leave him. He couldn't live without her. And he didn't want his children to live without him.
Police found a second suicide note in Vernon's house. The gun was still in his hand.
The three children lived primarily in Buena Park with their mother, Wendy Vernon. She last saw them Friday night before they flew off to visit their father.
Their "father"
THE CHILDREN
Matthew Vernon
Age: 10
Grade: Fifth grade, Arthur F. Corey Elementary School, Buena Park
Personal: Was in Gifted and Talented Education program at Corey; all-around athlete; played flag football; favorite football player was the Rams' Kurt Warner; liked the card game Yu-Gi-Oh.
Robert Vernon
Age: 10
Grade: Fifth grade, Arthur F. Corey Elementary School
Personal: Won Student of the Month award at Corey because he was polite and respectful; worked hard to overcome dyslexia and read at a ninth-grade level; played basketball, liked remote-control cars.
Amber Vernon
Age: 12
Grade: Seventh grade at Buena Park Junior High School
Personal: Avid artist and poet; played softball and loved her cat, Isabel; made jewelry with her aunt; couldn't wait to put up her Christmas lights; described by a cousin as especially caring.
On Monday night, she briefly came out to thank some 300 people who held a candlelight vigil outside her home.
"My beautiful babies - Oh, no!" Wendy Vernon wailed, nearly collapsing with grief. "I want to touch them. I want to hug them ... Oh, God, I want my babies."
Amber, a seventh-grader at Buena Park Junior High, impressed friends and family with her art and poetry - notebooks full of drawings and thoughts on everything from space adventure to her cat, Isabel.
Matthew and Robert were fraternal twins - and inseparable. Matthew was a star athlete, looking forward to basketball camp with Robert, known for his sweet nature and for battling dyslexia until he could read beyond his grade level.
The children took trips to Hawaii with their father at least once a year, and friends envied them for having all the latest toys.
Now, Vernon's family is struggling to understand why he turned violent.
"I had no clue that he was upset,'' Barbara Miller said. "I talked to him three times in the past week. There was no indication.''
The three children began visiting their father in Santa Clara shortly after their parents divorced in 1995.
At first, they visited him one weekend a month and for holidays and vacations.
In June, Todd Vernon requested that the visitations be increased to twice a month.
He paid $864 a month in child support, and no change in that was sought.
Five months ago, Vernon quit his job delivering and installing medical equipment at hospitals, he told friends, to spend more time with his children. His second wife, Nadine, made plenty of money and he wasn't worried about finances, friends said.
A judge ordered visitation increased to every three weeks - a change that took effect in July.
Wendy Vernon wasn't happy with the judge's decision, but complied.
On Friday night, she sent her children with Barbara Miller to catch a 6:30 p.m. flight to Santa Clara. They seemed excited and talked about what they wanted for Christmas, including a CD player and a remote- control car, Miller said.
She described her son as a doting father who often flew from Santa Clara to pick up his kids for the weekend. He bought them dirt bikes, and they were planning to go snorkeling in Hawaii for Christmas this year.
He seemed thrilled Friday when she told him the children were safely on a plane and on their way, she said.
The first indication she had that something was wrong was Saturday when she found the letter.
It came with a box of personal effects that included savings bonds and his diploma from Sonora High School in La Habra.
The letter said that Nadine planned to leave him and he couldn't survive without her, and didn't want the children to go on living without him, she said.
"Losing her is the end of the world. I hope some day you will understand," she said, reading the letter. In his own handwriting, he ended the first page, "I love you - Todd."
In disbelief, she reread the letter three times. Then she phoned her brother to ask what to do.
He called Todd Vernon's landlord in Santa Clara on his cell phone around noon and asked him to check the house, then alerted authorities.
Police arrived at the home shortly afterward and discovered the bodies. Each person had been shot once.
Neighbors said they didn't hear the shots. Police declined to give more details.
Buena Park police were also notified Saturday and rushed to check on Wendy Vernon.
When she didn't answer the door, police knocked it down to make sure she was unharmed. She was out running errands but was eventually contacted.
Wendy Vernon said that her children feared their father and didn't like going to visit him.
"I told the courts, I told them he didn't want them and they made me put them on a plane," she said shortly after learning about the deaths. "They were afraid for me to discuss any issues with him. 'Please don't tell Daddy,' they would say."
But Vernon said she had no way of knowing that her ex- husband was capable of such brutality.
Relatives of Nadine Nunes Vernon said she had talked with several people about her plans to end her relationship with Todd Vernon.
"I never heard anything about being afraid of him," said her uncle Edward Nunes. "I can't believe he'd do this to her or the kids. We're devastated."
Wendy Vernon's attorney said Todd Vernon had shown signs of being controlling - making the children change into clothes he bought for them as soon as they arrived at the airport and refusing to let them do school work during visits with him.
But court records and attorneys for both sides indicate no history of violence or threats.
"There was nothing that came up in evidence about fear," said C. Larry Francher, the La Habra attorney who represented Todd Vernon.
Wendy Vernon said the letter proves that he had been planning the slayings.
"He waited for them,'' she said. "He waited for my babies. I don't know why he took them. He shot them in the head while they slept.
"I can't have an open casket for my babies,'' she said. "Oh my angels."
Friends of the Vernons gathered late Monday outside Wendy Vernon's home to remember the children.
A picture of each child was taped to a tree. Dozens of people signed a remembrance poster. Friends collected money to help the family pay for funeral services.
Finally, just before 8 p.m., a tearful Wendy Vernon spoke to those whose lives were touched by her children.
"I think everybody here knows they were beautiful kids, inside and out," she said. "I just want to love them and wrap my arms around them and tell them I love them.
"This is just so devastating.''
Mad/sad
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