Mother Found Unstable Before Murders-Suicide

The Anaheim woman who apparently shot her boyfriend and two children to death this week before turning the gun on herself had been described as a “high risk” to the children by an Orange County judge, who nevertheless granted her joint custody of them.

In handing down the 1991 divorce ruling that left the two children in the care of Marcia Amsden-Kyle, 38, Orange County Superior Court Judge Nancy Wieben Stock wrote that Amsden-Kyle demonstrated “emotionality” and “instability” and could be a risk to the youngsters.

Wieben Stock is the same judge who granted O.J. Simpson permanent custody of his children in December. Efforts to reach her for comment Thursday evening were unsuccessful.

Riverside County sheriff’s deputies found the bodies of Amsden-Kyle, Tarah Leigh Kyle, 7, and Storm Cameron Kyle, 9, Wednesday in a car on a desolate dirt road near Amsden-Kyle’s parents’ home in Riverside.

Police also found Amsden-Kyle’s boyfriend, Matthew Stephen Bailey, 28, dead in the Anaheim condominium the couple shared. An autopsy Thursday revealed Bailey had been killed by two gunshots to the head and had been dead for three to four days.

Court records and interviews with family and friends paint a picture of a mother who neglected her children, often sending them to school with matted hair and dirty clothing, and a former husband who by last year was $6,000 behind in child support payments.

“They weren’t taken care of, you could tell that,” said Kimberly Brown, whose 7-year-old daughter, Amanda, was a good friend of Tarah Kyle. Tarah “always wanted attention, especially from adults, especially from women,” Brown said. “She was really full of life, but she was a very needy little girl. Anyone could see that.”

For the last five years, the children had been the subject of a prolonged court battle between Amsden-Kyle and her former husband, Jeffrey Kyle--a fight that continued in the courts until early this month.

“It’s all in the court records; she was nuts, plainly nuts,” said Jeffrey Kyle Sr. of Riverside, who said his son, the children’s father, saw his children on alternate weekends. Kyle, a self-employed truck driver who remarried and lives in Cherry Valley, declined to comment Thursday.

“All indications led to this sort of thing,” Kyle Sr. said. “Her problems had been going on forever.”

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Former neighbors on the street of single-family homes where the Kyles lived said Amsden-Kyle, a sometime barmaid and caterer, often appeared intoxicated and could be heard yelling at her children.

When the couple separated, neighbors said, she began holding loud parties. The house she had once cared for with her husband fell into disrepair. The front yard filled with garbage. At least four times within a year, neighbors said, police went to the Locust Avenue house in response to noise complaints. Anaheim police would not comment.

“I saw her banging her head against the fence one time, she was so strung out,” said Leina Molina, 76, who lived across the street from the Kyles. “Those two, they were fighting all the time. It was a mess.”

Eventually, Amsden-Kyle was evicted for failing to make mortgage payments, neighbors said.

It was then, about three years ago, according to neighbors, that Amsden-Kyle left the Locust Avenue home and moved in with Bailey on nearby Cameron Court.

But neighbors there said the romance was rocky. A woman who baby-sat for Amsden-Kyle said she feared Bailey would leave her, having a face lift and breast augmentation surgery in an attempt to keep him.

Meanwhile, the dispute with her former husband over child support payments and custody continued.

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At one point, Jeffrey Kyle wrote to the court, “The child’s best interests would be served if they were placed in my primary care and custody. [Marcia Amsden-Kyle] continues to file these frivolous motions which cause me to lose substantial time from my employment.”

In 1996, Kyle was found in contempt of court for failing to pay over $6,000 in child support payments. He was given three years’ probation.

According to Orange County Municipal Court records, both Amsden-Kyle and Bailey had a history of traffic violations.

Her record includes citations for driving with a suspended license, speeding and other moving violations. Bailey’s violations included a 1991 citation for drunken driving. The outcome of that case was not immediately available.

As family and friends mourned the deaths of the four, officials at Dr. Peter Marshall Elementary School in Anaheim struggled to deal with the aftermath of the slayings, calling in psychologists to speak to classmates and teachers of Tarah and Storm Kyle.

“It makes me sick to think they’re gone,” said Michelle Davis, whose children attend the school. “They didn’t do anything. They had a life ahead of them, they had a future. Why didn’t she leave them behind? They could have had a better life than she did.”

Also contributing to this report was Times correspondent Jeff Kass.