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UTAH STATE PRISON — Ten years ago, members of the Utah Board of Pardons and Parole used words like "cold," "matter-of-fact," "callous" and "indifferent" to describe Shelly Flemal.
"I know it didn't go good," Flemal said Tuesday, reflecting on her last parole hearing in 2005. "I know I didn't present myself the way I wanted to present myself."
In 1994, Flemal, a meth addict who frequently beat her children and was already on the radar of the Division of Child and Family Services, hit her 3-year-old daughter, Courtney Jo Flemal, in the neck in a fit of rage. The next morning, Courtney was dead.
But rather than call authorities, Flemal took the girl's body to the Ogden City Cemetery and shoved it under a bush. She then told police that her daughter had disappeared while playing near the swings at Ogden's Liberty Park, sparking a three-day community search.
Flemal was arrested six months later. In 1996 she accepted a plea bargain, pleading guilty to murder, a first-degree felony. The Weber County Attorney's Office said it would recommend she serve no more than six years in prison as part of the deal.
Many in the courtroom believed it was too light of a sentence, citing her seemingly indifferent demeanor. Second District Judge Brent West agreed to the deal, saying it would ultimately be up to the Board of Pardons and Parole to decide how long Flemal should be incarcerated.
Flemal has now been incarcerated for 20 years. On Tuesday, the 44-year-old appeared before a member of the board for the first time in a decade, claiming she is a changed woman.
"There is no atoning for this. There's no way to make this right. There's no way to give back the pain and sorrow I caused people," a remorseful Flemal told board member Chyleen Arbon.
But Flemal said she believes she is ready to prove to people that she is a different person.
Rather than appearing cold and indifferent, on Tuesday Flemal seemed to show genuine remorse and was much more articulate than she had been in previous court and parole hearings.
Since being in prison, Flemal has earned her high school diploma, a culinary arts certificate from Salt Lake Community College and has taken several classes to help her with anger and mental health issues.
"I haven't really been in trouble since 2003," she told Arbon, admitting that during her first 10 years in prison she still used her bravado as a defense mechanism until finally realizing, "If I can't follow the rules in here, how can I follow them out there?"
Flemal initially denied the allegations against her 20 years ago, but on Tuesday she talked openly about the events of 1994, even though it was difficult to do.
"My life was a mess. My life was a disaster," she said, noting that she was "strung out on drugs," involved in a domestic violence-filled relationship of her own and was about to be evicted from her house.
She also admitted beating her children on a regular basis.
"I wasn't a good mom," she said. "All my emotional stuff would come out in anger and I would just lash out.
"I think one of the biggest problems was I didn't know how to ask for help from anyone," she said, adding that her "pride and ego" got in the way.
Prior to Courtney's death, in 1989 Shelly Flemal's 7-month-old son Tyler was admitted to McKay-Dee Hospital Center semicomatose and unresponsive. Doctors found skull fractures and bleeding on his brain. X-rays also revealed the infant's left leg and left wrist had been fractured three weeks earlier.
Flemal said she gave up her parental rights to Tyler. He was adopted into a new home many years ago and she no longer had contact with him.
When asked why she made up the story of Courtney being abducted, Flemal said she didn't think anyone would believe that she accidentally killed the girl. She said her intention was never to kill her child.
"I really didn't know how to handle that, that she was dead. I mean, how do you wrap your head around that? Twenty years later I still can't wrap my head around it," she said. "I just remember losing my temper."
I wasn't a good mom. All my emotional stuff would come out in anger and I would just lash out. I think one of the biggest problems was I didn't know how to ask for help from anyone.
–Shelly Flemal
When police later questioned her, Flemal said she was heavily using drugs at the time.
Flemal, who said she realized she offended an entire community, contends that today she is no longer capable of lying.
"One lie can affect so many lives in a devastating manner," she said.
Flemal told Arbon that if she were to be paroled, she has no intention of having more children.
"When I took (Courtney's life), I forfeited the right to be a parent," she said.
She also claimed she is not interested in forming a relationship with another man.
"I didn't make very good choices, obviously," she said of the two different fathers of her two children who were no longer in the picture at the time of Courtney's death.
"It's not easy to live with who I was," she said. "I don't think there's ever going to be a day where this is OK. … It's hard because all these years later there's still no wrapping your head around it."
Flemal said she no longer has contact with the friends she had 20 years ago. Today, her closest friends are women she met while in prison, most of whom have been paroled and are living better lives. One of those former inmates attended Tuesday's parole hearing to support Flemal.
When Flemal said she hoped she had made a better impression at Tuesday's hearing than she did 10 years ago, Arbon responded, "I feel like you have. I feel like I get where you're coming from."
But Arbon stopped short of saying she would recommend parole. She noted that Flemal's last psychological evaluation was when she was 24. She ordered a new evaluation with another parole hearing to follow shortly after. Based on what the evaluation determines, the board may then decide whether to release Flemal to a halfway house.
When asked how long she believes she should be in prison, Flemal said there is no amount of time that can make up for what she did. But she feels she's ready to re-enter society.
"I know I'm not the same person I was 20 years ago. I've grown up. This has been a very great learning experience for me," she said. "I know I deserve to be in prison. How do I say, 'This is enough time?' I'm not the same person I was.
"I don't think I would ever hurt a child again because I'm not the same as I was."
