The Story of Christine Falling
On February 25, 1980 the Johnson family needed a babysitter for their then 2 year old daughter Cassidy. There were conflicting reports on wether Cassidy’s parents were going to work or going out on a date but whatever the case they needed someone to watch their daughter. So they called on Christine Falling. Falling had babysat several times previously and the Johnsons trusted her.
On that night though, things wouldn’t end with Falling getting paid and sent home at the end of the night. When Cassidy’s parents came home, Falling told them Cassidy had gotten sick suddenly and then fallen out of her crib. Her parents rushed the toddler to the ER. I also found sources that said Cassidy’s parents took her to the ER 4 hours later when she began to show extreme illness. Unfortunately, Cassidy would not survive her injuries.
Cassidy’s cause of death was listed as encephalitis or “brain inflammation”. One doctor listed Cassidy’s death as natural causes after the autopsy, but the second doctor disagreed and passed suspicions on to police that Falling had hurt the child resulting in the death. Police interviewed Falling about the child’s sudden illness and fall. Her story didn’t change much (all stories change a little, even when they are the truth, because people remember or forget details they gave in the first interview) and there was no evidence of foul play, just one doctor’s suspicions. Falling was released. A few weeks later, Falling moved to Lakeland, Florida.
In May 1980 in Lakeland, Florida, a 911 call was placed. The caller told the operator that a 4-year-old boy in her care had stopped breathing suddenly. Paramedics were rushed to the house but even with all of their efforts they were unable to save the child. The young boy would later be identified as four-year-old Jeffrey Davis. Jeffrey was in the care of Falling, who at the time had only lived in the Lakeland area for 2 months.
The autopsy report listed myocarditis, which is usually a result of a viral infection and causes inflammation of the heart. Typically this wouldn’t raise suspicion but 3 days later 2 year old Joseph Spring, cousin of Jeffrey Davis, died from the same viral infection. This diagnosis came from the autopsy reports.
According to various sources Falling was hired to babysit Joseph while his parents attended the funeral of Jeffrey. Falling called 911 again and told the operator that Joseph wasn’t breathing and she couldn’t wake him from his nap.
In 1981, Falling decided to move to Perry, Florida. She took a job keeping house for 77-year-old William Swindle. The day Falling began working for him, he was found collapsed and unresponsive on his kitchen floor. He was rushed to the hospital where he was pronounced dead. An autopsy wasn’t done and his cause of death was listed as a heart attack.
Just a few weeks, after Swindle died, Falling accompanied her stepsister to the doctor. The stepsister’s infant daughter was getting her vaccinations. They stopped afterwards at a store to get diapers. Falling stayed in the car with the 8-month-old baby. When her stepsister came out, Falling told her the little girl had suddenly stopped breathing. She was pronounced dead at the emergency room. Her death was initially thought to be a reaction to her vaccinations.
It seemed wherever Falling would go death would follow. But none of it was an accident.
By the time she began her murderous career at the age of seventeen, Christine Falling had already experienced a full life of illness, frustration, and misery which, in retrospect, seemed to irresistibly compel her to escalating violence.
Falling is the last name of her adoptive parents. Christine was born Christine Laverne Slaughter on March 12, 1963, in Perry, Florida. Her mother, Ann, was only sixteen at the time of Falling’s birth and had already given birth to her older sister Carol. Her father, Thomas, was a sixty-five-year-old woodsman who was inattentive and violent by nature.
Her mother Ann would often leave for months at a time. When Ann would return home, it seemed to her young daughters that she always came back pregnant. Over the following two years, after Christine was born, Ann had two more children, boys Michael and Earl. Of all the children, Thomas claimed only Earl as his biological child.
The Slaughters were very poor, as were many living in Perry at the time. During Ann’s absence, Thomas cared for the children by bringing them out to the woods where he worked. But when he was in a work-related accident, Ann was forced to rejoin the family. After that the children were often shuffled around to family members until, according to Carol, Ann completely abandoned them, leaving them on a bench at a Perry shopping center.
Dolly Falling wanted to be a mother but was unable to have children. Her husband Jesse was related to the Slaughter children and they decided to adopt Carol and Christine within a few years after Christine’s birth.
Life for the two girls at the Falling’s home was unstable. Christine was epileptic and suffered from seizures. She also had severe learning and developmental problems. Physically she was unattractive, obese, and had an odd vacant look in her eyes.
At an early age, Christine demonstrated personality traits that were worrisome. She would have severe fits of anger and displayed antisocial behavior. For example, she developed a fascination with torturing cats. She would strangle them and then drop them from up high to see if they really had nine lives. She learned immediately that they did not, yet that did not end her experiments.
Both Carol and Christine became rebellious and unruly as they got older. However, according to author Madeline Blais in her book “The Heart Is an Instrument,” the girls were also subjected to physical and sexual abuse by Jesse Falling, something the Fallings both denied.
However, life at the Falling home was so dysfunctional that the church pastor interceded and the Fallings agreed to send the girls away.
The girls were sent to the Great Oaks Village in Orlando. This was a group foster home designed to help neglected and abused children. Christine later commented on how much she enjoyed her time there, although according to social workers, during her stay she was a thief, compulsive liar, and would often get in trouble just for the attention that it brought.
But Falling already had a striking propensity for bizarre and violent behavior. One of her favorite pastimes was torturing and killing cats to determine whether they really had nine lives.
There are many documented cases exploring the links between cruelty to animals and later more violent crimes in several studies, including a study that took place in Romania. According to the study, Independent News stated that the researchers found teenagers who found it normal to see homeless animals being abused or killed were found to be more likely to self-harm or have suicidal thoughts. The US department of Justice (USDOJ) cites that International Animal Torture and Cruelty (IATC) offenses frequently begin in childhood or adolescence. It says that although it is often an expression of rage, it also can be to control and intimidate others.
The USDOJ says that researchers have connected abuse of animals to bullying, aggression, school shootings, and sexual abuse. Often the perp does it to feel in control over something innocent and powerless to fight back.
It was also noted in the social workers’ records that Jesse Falling had been arrested twice for sexually abusing Carol. The first arrest ended in a hung jury and the second time Dolly Falling dropped the charges.
After a year at the refuge, the girls were returned to the Fallings. This time there was no sexual abuse, but the physical abuse continued. The final episode happened in October 1975 when Jesse allegedly subjected Christine to a severe beating for being 10 minutes late. He also insisted that she wear shorts to school the following day so everyone could see the “justice” marks. The following day the girls ran away.
After six weeks of living with Carol’s friend, Christine decided to go to Blountstown and live with Ann, her birth mother. She managed to do that for a while, and in September 1977, at the age of 14, she married a man (reportedly her stepbrother) who was in his twenties. The marriage was riddled with arguments and violence and it ended after just six weeks.
After her marriage failed, Christine developed a compulsion for going to the hospital emergency room. Each time she would complain of different ailments that doctors could not diagnose. One time she went complaining of bleeding, which turned out to be her regular menstrual period. Another time she thought a snake bit her. Within two years, she went to the hospital over 50 times.
It seemed that Christine’s need for attention, which the counselors at Great Oaks Village had noted, was transferred to getting attention at the hospital. At that point, she was possibly developing Munchausen syndrome, an infliction in which those affected seek the comfort from medical personnel for exaggerated or self-inflicted symptoms of illnesses.
Munchausen syndrome is closely related to Munchausen syndrome by proxy (MSbP/MSP), when they abuse another person, usually a child, to get attention or sympathy for themselves.
The exact cause of Munchausen syndrome is not known, but researchers are looking at the role of biological and psychological factors in its development. Some theories suggest that a history of abuse or neglect as a child, or a history of frequent illnesses that required hospitalization might be factors in the development of the syndrome. Researchers are also studying a possible link to personality disorders, which are common in people with Munchausen syndrome.
The commonality of Munchausen Syndrome is rare. There are no reliable statistics regarding the number of people in the U.S. who suffer from Munchausen syndrome, but it is considered to be a rare condition. Obtaining accurate statistics is difficult because dishonesty is common with this illness. In addition, people with Munchausen syndrome tend to seek treatment at many different health care facilities, which can lead to misleading statistics.
This brings us to the death of Travis Cook. On June 20, 1982 Falling was babysitting the 9-week-old boy when he suddenly experienced respiratory distress. He spent a week in the hospital, returning home July 1, 1982. On July 2, 1982 Falling was again babysitting the now 10-week-old boy when according to her, he just suddenly died.
Cook’s parents cooperated with an autopsy request, and it was discovered that the infant had died from suffocation. Falling was immediately questioned by local law enforcement officials about the Cook death.
Once in custody, Falling began confessing to her crimes. She was afraid of getting the death penalty and agreed to a plea deal. She told detectives that she killed her victims by “smotheration” and had learned how to do it by watching television. She boasted about putting her own spin on the technique by placing a blanket over the children’s faces. She also said that she heard voices telling her to “kill the baby.”
In a taped confession, she described the events leading up to the “smotheration” of each child. According to Falling:
Cassidy Johnson was smothered because she had “gotten kind of rowdy or something.” Jeffrey Davis “made me mad or something. I was already mad that morning. I just took it out on him and just started choking him ’til he was dead.” Joe Boy was napping when “I don’t know. I just got the urge and wanted to kill him.”
Her niece, Jennifer Daniels died because “She was continually crying and crying and crying and it made me mad so I just put my hands around her neck and choked her ’til she shut up.”
Travis Coleman was sleeping when “for no apparent reason” she killed him.
On September 17, 1982, Christine Falling plead guilty to murdering 3 children and received two concurrent life sentences. After a few years in prison, she admitted to strangling William Swindle. She became eligible for parole for the first time in 2007 making her 44 years old.
When her parole did arrived the panel showed no mercy. They denied her however, by law Falling remains eligible for parole, but prosecutors told the review panel that the so-called babysitter from Hell deserved no mercy.
“This woman killed five babies from age two months to four years old. She says she just did it the way she saw on TV. She says she doesn’t know why she did it. Sometimes they cried and they made her mad. One time she just felt the urge,” said Joy Powell, an assistant state attorney in Perry.
No one showed up on Falling’s behalf at her parole hearing. Her presumptive release date is 2254, likely long after she dies. She does get another hearing in 2014 but I was unable to find the results of that. I’m assuming she was denied parole again but can’t confirm.
Interestingly, during her time in prison, Christine’s doctors rejected her claims that she heard voices, but she returned to her old habit of going to the medical bay for mystery illnesses and non-specific symptoms. She does not have an official diagnosis of Munchausen Syndrome, but at the time of her application for parole a doctor did mention they thought she had it and therefore posed a risk to the public.
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