Man Revives Late Wife’s Campaign for ‘Special Kids’

One-year-old Angela would knock on her older brother’s bedroom door. She would wait for him to come out and play Elmo’s Preschool Alphabet game on the computer. Or study his 30 dinosaur cards.

Or fiddle around with his mini-kitchen set complete with plastic vegetables and utensils.

Her father, Larry Bickmann, just watched, unable to find the words to explain what happened to 4-year-old Garett. Or Angela’s mother, Jacqueline.

How could he tell her that on an August night her mother and brother were found dead 100 feet below the bridge connecting the Moorpark and Simi Valley freeways?

How could he tell her their deaths may forever remain a mystery, that police haven’t ruled out the possibility of suicide or accident?

He couldn’t.

So Bickmann took the family portraits, the wedding pictures and any photos with Garett and 29-year-old Jacqueline off the walls and shelves of his Moorpark home.

“She’s too young to comprehend where they are at, and also the daily emotional effect of seeing that, and the unexplained accident takes its toll,” said Bickmann, sitting in the living room with shelves full of Garett’s toys but only Angela’s pictures.

The interview came as Bickmann decided to break his long, public silence on their deaths.

He wants to let the public know that he does not believe his wife committed suicide. But more important, he hopes to attract attention to his wife’s mission: helping special education children receive better schooling and facilities.

Saturday, he spoke at a dedication ceremony for an oak tree and plaque at the Moorpark school where his autistic son attended classes.

“If the public can get one thing out of this accident, let it be that accidents do happen for a reason and that the reason here is to educate the public that these special kids need more assistance,” he said in his speech.

Prior to his son’s birth, Bickmann, a 37-year-old GTE supervisor, had no idea what parents had to go through to provide special education kids with good schooling.

Garett seemed a genius to Bickmann. Just several months past his first birthday, he could recite all the letters of the alphabet and count to 30. A year later, he knew the names of 100 animals, could distinguish between pictures of a deer and a gazelle, a koala and a bear.

But then something began to bewilder his parents.

Why was Garett talking less? Why was he not calling his aunts by their names anymore?

After the doctor missed clues during earlier visits, Garett was diagnosed at 2 1/2 years of age with autism, a neurological disorder that slowed his speaking skills, caused him to be more withdrawn and made it more difficult to sleep at night.

Jacqueline later took Garett to the Child Development Center at Simi Valley Hospital for therapy, where she also brought Angela for treatment for cerebral palsy.

She hired a therapist to help Garett several hours each week. And she enrolled Garett in a preschool class at Moorpark’s Flory School, where teachers worked with special education preschoolers.

Garett attended school from 8 to 10:30 a.m. His mother, however, wanted the classes to last until noon, as they do in Thousand Oaks or Simi Valley.

Jacqueline took her request to the school representatives, but was denied. She brought together therapists, doctors and a representative from the Tri-County Regional Center to support her in her fight. The school district finally gave the extra hours not only to her son, but to the rest of the children in Garett’s class, Bickmann said.

“They don’t give it to you; You have to fight for it,” said Bickmann, adding that his wife was always worried that parents who don’t have the time, energy or language skills to communicate would not be able to demand better education for their special-needs child.

Once preschool let out, Garett went into summer school and then waited for kindergarten to start. But his parents noticed that during this eight-week break, the skills he had been learning were regressing.

Jacqueline began urging the schools to create year-round programs for children with special needs. Her mission was cut short on the night of Aug. 6.

After bathing the children, Larry and Jacqueline put the kids to bed and went to sleep.

Garett woke up late at night, as children with autism frequently do, and began banging his feet against Angela’s wall, Bickmann said. “I took Garett out for a long distance drive to make him go to sleep,” wrote Jacqueline in a note confiscated by law enforcement agents during the investigation, a photocopy of which they gave to Bickmann.

At 4:20 a.m., law enforcement officers knocked on his door. They told him his wife and son had been found 100 feet below the Moorpark Freeway span.

The car had been found with a flat tire on the bridge above.

They also let him know he had not been ruled out as a suspect.

“I understand,” Bickmann recalled saying.

“My dad was a policeman so I knew it was a possibility. I knew everyone was a suspect--you, your grandmother.”

What bothered him was that the deputies did not tell him where the two had been taken. Four hours later they informed him that both had died. “Why was I made to endure more than four hours of misery of not knowing any details whatsoever?” he asked during his Saturday speech.

In the meantime, investigators said they have ruled out foul play but could not determine whether the deaths were by suicide or accident.

If there is anything Bickmann is sure of, it’s that his wife did not commit suicide.

“Even though the case has been ruled undetermined,” he said in his speech, “true family and friends know that this was an accident or the result of foul play.”

He said the most likely explanation for the deaths was accidental.

Garett, he said, was a climber. Bickmann points to the railings in his home, covered with clear plastic panels to keep Garett from climbing them, he said.

He could easily envision Garett, scared of the oncoming trucks, climbing toward the wall and falling. He could envision Jacqueline trying to protect him and falling over the low wall by accident. What he can’t imagine, he said, is his wife peering over the edge to contemplate suicide.

“Jackie was afraid of heights,” he said. “I know she would never do anything like that on her own.”

During trips, she would never get near the edge of hills, he said. She wouldn’t even go up some flights of stairs.

“The main thing people have to realize is that one in a billion mothers would do that [suicide],” Bickmann said. “One that devoted [to her children] would not do that.”

Since the accident, Bickmann has made a pilgrimage to the spot on the sixth of every month to commemorate their deaths. He never peers over the edge, fearing it would be all to easy to accidentally fall and leave Angela an orphan.

“I am not an outwardly sentimental person,” Bickmann said. “Guys don’t cry. That’s instilled early on. . . . That’s changed.”

He cried while giving the eulogy months ago but talks in an even tone now. He needs to be strong for Angela, he said.

“Many friends say I’ve remained strong, though they don’t see me, but I’ve had to go to work and continue to support her,” he says.

In working to garner attention for the plight of special education children, Bickmann has set up the Moorpark Unified School District Bickmann Memorial Fund and added $1,000 to the fund. Any money donated to the district for the fund would be used toward creating better programs and equipment for the special education class Garett attended.

Bickmann is also busy attending to Angela, who since the deaths has had trouble sleeping and tries to stay with her father all the time.

In front of his home, a plastic Santa stands aside a North Pole sign, little plastic candy canes border his neatly trimmed lawn and Christmas lights twinkle in the trees.

“To me, there’s no reason why Angela can’t have a good Christmas,” he says.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

FYI

Those interested in contributing to the Moorpark Unified School District Bickmann Memorial Fund should send checks to the fund at 30 Flory Ave., Moorpark 93021, or call 378-6300.