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UTAH STATE PRISON — When she was sentenced to serve 20 years in prison in October for the abuse she had inflicted on her six children, the judge told Michele Juan Napolitano what she had done was “evil, depraved and unimaginable.”
On Tuesday, the Vernal woman struggled to explain why she hanged her then 5-year-old son over a door by his hands and feet for days, doing damage so severe doctors had to amputate all of the boy's toes and parts of his feet.
“For some reason in my head I thought he was going to hurt me,” Napolitano told Utah Board of Pardons and Parole hearing officer Andy Taylor during her first parole hearing.
“I was scared all the time that people were going to hurt me,” she continued. “I can't explain what I was going through.”
Taylor asked Napolitano if she recalled striking her son in the head with a hammer, slamming his head against a bathtub, and locking him in a trunk for an extended period of time.
“I have a hard time remembering details,” she said. “I have a hard time remembering day-to-day facts, even still.”
When asked about hanging her son over the door, Napolitano told Taylor the boy had been suspended there for only one day. Taylor noted, however, that the boy's siblings said their mother left their brother hanging for as long as three days.
At some point I stopped being the victim and started being the perpetrator. I don't want to be that... I definitely need some help. I don't want to hurt people.
–Michele Napolitano
“I thought it was 24 hours,” Napolitano said. “To me maybe one day was two or three. They would run in to each other. … I'm sorry.”
“Well I'm sorry for this child that you brutalized,” Taylor replied. “I look at you there and I can't believe that you actually did this to this child of (5) years old.”
Doctors told investigators the boy would have died from infection if Uintah County sheriff's deputies and the state Division of Child and Family Services hadn't intervened on Dec. 31, 2009, after receiving a tip that the child was not receiving proper medical treatment.
“Were you treated like this when you were a child?” Taylor asked, noting that Napolitano had also used a hammer to “punish” her five other children.
“I don't want to say anything against my parents,” replied Napolitano, who was pregnant with her seventh child when she was arrested.
She did however say that her ex-husband, Francis “Frank” Napolitano, was so physically abusive she began drinking alcohol “to make the beatings easier.” He is charged with one count of child abuse, a second-degree felony, in connection with the injuries suffered by the now-6-year-old boy and is due in 8th District Court for a status hearing on April 12.
Michelle Napolitano accused another ex-husband of abusing her as well.
“He took a blowtorch to me,” Napolitano told Taylor, acknowledging that she hadn't received any counseling for the abuse she'd endured.
“I think that I definitely need some help. I don't want to hurt people,” she said. “At some point I stopped being the victim and started being the perpetrator. I don't want to be that.”
Napolitano is housed at the Davis County Jail at her request because her current husband is barred from visiting her at the prison due to misdemeanor convictions in 2007, said Utah Department of Corrections spokesman Steve Gehrke. While the jail allows her to visit with her husband, it offers none of the counseling Napolitano pleaded for during her parole hearing.
“If I'm going to be incarcerated, please put me somewhere where I can get help,” she said. “I cannot live in my own head. I've been scared since I was a child.”
Napolitano was brought to the state prison for her parole hearing and remained there Wednesday, according to Gehrke. It is unclear for now whether she will remain at the prison for the remainder of her incarceration or be transported back to the Davis County Jail in a few days, Gehrke said.
The parole board guidelines in Napolitano's case calls for her to serve at least 2½ years before being eligible for parole, Taylor said. He added, however, that without the proper treatment during her incarceration, Napolitano would “just be released into the same hell you were in.”
“Because the hell is in my head,” she replied.
The parole board's is expected to announce its decision in about a month.
E-mail:geoff@ubstandard.com
