Prosecutors Weigh Charges in Dumping of Two Newborns

In a case that has frustrated police, prosecutors are considering whether to file criminal charges against a Camp Pendleton Marine, his wife and his mother-in-law for a grisly incident that may have begun as a botched abortion and ended with the death of twin infants.

Lance Cpl. Willie Paul Judkins, 20, Vickie Judkins, 23, and Ida Belle Franks, 46, have told Oceanside police that the premature babies were born alive in the family apartment but had stopped breathing before they were wrapped in plastic trash bags and thrown away.

“First they were moving,” Vickie Judkins told police, who taped the interviews with the family. “They just stopped moving.”

Willing to Testify

But police Detective Ron Jenkins said he has located a neighbor, Yolanda Morales, who is willing to testify that Franks and Vickie Judkins told her the babies were alive when they were wrapped up for disposal.

“Vickie and Paul regret what happened, but they were scared and panicky,” Morales told The Times. “They wish they had taken another way and called for help. They wish they hadn’t put their babies in the dumpster.”

Still, there have been no arrests, and it remains unclear whether any charges will ever be filed in a case in which there is no physical evidence and the only three witnesses are also the suspects.

The incident allegedly occurred one night shortly after Christmas, but six weeks of silence followed before police first heard of it from a neighbor who had been told a version of the story by Franks.

Bodies Never Found

The unwanted infants--a boy and a girl--were tossed in separate trash bins somewhere along Interstate 5 between Oceanside and Los Angeles, according to Franks and the parents. The bodies were never found, and now are possibly buried under tons of trash at a county landfill.

Neighbors said they were told by the family that the afterbirth was thrown away in San Diego, and a bloody mattress, which Vickie Judkins told police she unexpectedly gave birth on, was found by military investigators at Camp Pendleton.

Asked about the death of the infants, Paul Judkins told The Times:

“I feel bad about what happened, but I can’t change it. I’ve got to be strong and get through this by myself. I’m not going to kill myself about it. I never been in any major trouble before.”

He refused to further discuss the case.

Lack of Evidence Frustrating

Oceanside child abuse detectives, who conducted the initial investigation and have now turned the case over to the district attorney’s office, said they were frustrated by a lack of independent witnesses, medical records on the pregnancy or birth and, ultimately, cooperation from the Judkins family.

“It was extremely difficult to get enough evidence to justify an arrest warrant, short of (finding) the bodies,” said Detective Ian Johnston.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Sally J. Penso, assigned to the North County child abuse unit, said the case is “still under review to see what, if any, criminal charges can be filed.”

Among the possible charges, she said, are murder, felony child endangerment, or improper disposal of fetal remains, a misdemeanor. Penso noted that under a recent state law, one spouse can be forced to testify against another in a child abuse case.

The births allegedly occurred in the Judkinses’ run-down, two-bedroom dwelling in the Centurion Apartments complex in Oceanside, a popular complex among Marine families and single women with children.

Police first heard the tale in mid-February from a neighbor who had talked to Franks, an assertive woman who some neighbors said frightened them by telling them she knew voodoo and could cast jinxes and spells.

Overseas Duty Canceled

After police began investigating and contacted Naval Investigative Services for assistance, the Marine Corps canceled Judkins’ orders for a one-year overseas tour of duty.

A spokesman for Camp Pendleton said Judkins will probably be discharged “for the good of the Marine Corps” if serious criminal charges are filed against him, common practice when civilian charges are levied against a Marine.

After completing their investigation in March, Oceanside police returned to the Centurion to check on a tip that Franks and the Judkinses may have given a different version to neighbors on a key issue: whether the babies had already stopped breathing when they were wrapped in the plastic garbage bags.

Charge Could Be Elevated

If the babies were alive, the potential charge of endangerment--for declining to summon aid--could be elevated to the charge of murder--for actively ending their lives.

Under state law, any assistance given in an abortion not performed by a physician is a felony, but such a charge would probably require an autopsy to prove the babies were born as a result of the abortion and not by a fluke coincidence.

In the wake of the criminal investigation, juvenile authorities placed the Judkinses’ two children--a boy, 3, and a girl, 2--in foster homes. Franks’ 5-year-old son was also put in a foster home.

The Judkinses’ children have since been returned to them. A Juvenile Court hearing on Franks’ son is pending.

Couldn’t Afford Pregnancy

Citing state laws on confidentiality in dependency cases, juvenile officials refused to discuss the cases or why the children were put in foster homes. However, they said that Franks and the Judkinses came to the attention of juvenile officials only as a result of the criminal investigation.

Judkins and his wife told Oceanside police they felt they could not afford another child when they discovered she was pregnant last fall.

Because Vickie Judkins never received any prenatal care, there is no official record of her pregnancy or any way of knowing how premature the babies might have been. But investigators, based on statements she made, speculate Judkins was five to seven months pregnant at the time of the births.

Free Medical Care

As a military dependent, Vickie Judkins is eligible for free medical care at the Camp Pendleton Naval Hospital. Since 1982, however, Congress has prohibited elective abortions at military hospitals in the United States unless the mother’s life is in danger.

The Judkinses and Franks told police that a decision was made to abort the pregnancy using a Lysol-soaked straw that was inserted into Vickie Judkins’ vagina. Vickie Judkins told police it was her mother’s idea; Franks said it was her daughter’s.

In their interviews with police, all three agreed on the major points of what occurred after the decision was made to end the pregnancy:

Several Attempts Made

Several abortion attempts were made over several weeks. Finally--either as a result of the straw breaking her water, or through a coincidence, or possibly due to stress--Vickie Judkins went into labor.

When two infants were born alive, there was panic.

After the infants stopped breathing, there was talk of whether to dump them in Oceanside or somewhere farther away to avoid being caught, the three said. There was talk of whether the family could afford the gas money to take the bodies to another county.

For at least several minutes, the babies were alive, although premature and in distress. Vickie Judkins told police she first noticed the babies were dead about an hour after their birth.

Might Have Been Saved

Had an emergency 911 call been made, Oceanside paramedics said, an ambulance could have arrived within three to five minutes with oxygen and life-sustaining drugs. The babies could have been rushed to the neonatal intensive care unit at Tri-City Hospital.

Instead, family members told police, the bodies were put in the trunk of the Judkinses’ battered Cadillac, and Judkins and his mother-in-law drove north.

Bleeding and in pain, Vickie Judkins told police, she stayed behind with her children and her young brother. She said the distraught family asked God for forgiveness after her husband and mother-in-law returned from the task.

Asked for Forgiveness

“They didn’t say nothing (at first),” she told police. “(My mother) said, ‘Let’s just pray.’ ”

Police asked her what the family prayed for.

“Just to forgive us, because we knew it was wrong,” Vickie Judkins told them.

Neighbors and friends said the Judkinses are a confused and troubled young couple from Dayton, Ohio, who are always short of money and apparently unable to cope with the pressures of parenthood. They said the couple have never become comfortable with California after being uprooted from the more familiar surroundings of Camp Lejeune, N.C.

‘Want Them Home’

“If Vickie and Paul could have stayed closer to home, none of this would have happened--none of it,” Deborah Thomas, Paul Judkins’ mother, said by phone from Dayton. “We all love them and want them home.”

Thomas hung up several times on a reporter.

Vickie Judkins, thin and nervous and with sad eyes, worked at Burger King before her pregnancy.

“She was always worried and unhappy,” a former co-worker said.

Now, friends say, she cries when she talks about what happened.

Worried About Career

Willie Paul Judkins, a stocky man who friends say is talkative and can be argumentative, is afraid his Marine career could be cut short.

The rocky relationship between Judkins and his wife became worse last fall, neighbors and friends say, with the arrival from Dayton of Vickie Judkins’ mother. She brought her youngest child with her.

Neighbors said Franks warned them that she had learned the powerful secrets of voodoo while living in the South. Residents at the Centurion said she often unnerved them during late-night visits by crossing her leg behind her head and sitting silently.

They said that some nights the three-way quarrels in Apartment 62 became so bad that the Judkinses slept in their aging Cadillac to get away from Franks.

‘He’s Just a Kid’

Said a Marine who works beside Judkins, a mechanic, at Camp Pendleton: “He’s just a kid, only 20, and the fighting with his wife and her momma just got to him. He never wanted to do it, but once it was done, he was afraid of the police and the Corps finding out. He don’t know whether to be scared or angry.”

Much of the fighting was over a lack of money, according to neighbors and friends. After three years’ service, Judkins makes $858 a month, along with a housing allowance of between $400 and $500 and a food allowance of $5.06 a day.

Pressed by bills that led the court to declare him indigent in a misdemeanor arrest case last year, Judkins told his wife that she needed to have an abortion but that they could not afford one by a private doctor. Both husband and wife told police that they talked of getting a loan to pay for the procedure.

Rarely Saw Couple

When detectives went to the Centurion in February, most of the neighbors told them that they rarely saw Paul and Vickie Judkins. But Franks, they said, was a common sight in the complex’s picnic area, where she often sat drinking beer or inexpensive wine.

After falling a month behind in their $575 rent and receiving an eviction notice, the Judkinses last month moved to another complex several blocks away. Franks’ whereabouts could not be determined.

From the beginning, police have felt stymied by a lack of physical evidence and by the fact that all three of the witnesses are possible suspects.

Refused Medical Exam

Although she at first agreed, Vickie Judkins later refused to take a medical examination to prove that she had been pregnant, police said.

“The (police) investigator told me that he figured nothing would ever come of it unless they could find an outside witness who saw the birth, which is impossible,” said Charles Royer, assistant manager at the Centurion.

Paul Judkins was known to Oceanside police even before the investigation began in mid-February.

He was arrested May 3, 1987, for allegedly squeezing a woman’s crotch at Buddy Todd Park. Described as “angry” on the arrest report, Judkins told police that he was dancing and his arm accidentally flew into the woman’s car but that he never touched her crotch.

Placed on Probation

After pleading innocent to soliciting a lewd act, Judkins accepted the standard plea bargain in such first-time cases.

In October he pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct, was ordered to attend counseling and was placed on three years’ probation. The counseling requirement was later canceled in lieu of a $100 fine.

Judkins and his wife were ordered to submit to a psychiatric test and counseling when their children were removed by juvenile officials. They remained confident their children would be returned quickly.

“There’s nothing wrong with my kids,” Judkins said while the children were still in foster homes. “I want them back. I love kids.”