From Gigi Graciette:
"Only if you promise to give me the death penalty", Marilyn Edge repeated over and over again, as the judge asked if she agreed to have her arraignment continued to October.
It is her first court appearance since being arrested for the murder of her children and already it's not going well.
"Only if you promise to give me the death penalty", she says again; her head bowed, her eyes never looking up. But with the judge pressing for a "yes or no" answer, she eventually murmurs "yes" and an October date is set.
Marilyn was arrested on Saturday after Santa Ana Police found her two children, 10 year old Faith and 13 year old Jaelen, dead inside their hotel room.
The coroner would later find they had been murdered, poisoned; their lifeless bodies put in the hotel room's Jacuzzi in an attempt to drown them.
Police found the children after Marilyn reportedly tried to kill herself in nearby Costa Mesa by crashing her car into an electrical outlet box in a parking lot.
She reportedly told police there about the children in Santa Ana and the rest is tragic history.
If this were a movie, the cameras would cut to a scene playing out 2,190 miles away in Marietta, Georgia. There, Mark Edge, Faith and Jaelen's father, was eagerly preparing for their arrival to live with him.
After years of battling his ex-wife in court, his lawyer says, last week a judge granted him permanent custody of Faith and Jaelen. Finally! It would be a brand new start for the three of them.
The judge in Georgia had given Marilyn until Noon on Sunday to turn the children over to her ex-husband in Georgia. "See you Sunday", she reportedly texted him. It was the last he would hear about her until that knock on the door.
That knock that would forever change his life came at five o'clock in the morning on Sunday…seven hours before his children were to arrive.
The rest...the rest is tragic history.
Mark is in the hospital, his lawyer told me today. "Emotional distress", she said. Meanwhile she is dealing with the coroner here to arrange for the children to be flown to Georgia for burial.
And Marilyn is behind bars, awaiting her October date in court.
"Only if you promise to give me the death penalty", Marilyn Edge said. Over and over again.
(FOX 11 / AP) A mother involved in a contentious custody case has been charged with killing her 13-year-old autistic son and 10-year-old daughter in California after a judge ordered them returned to their father in Georgia.
Authorities weren't releasing many details, but one of the special circumstances filed by prosecutors against 42-year-old Marilyn Edge alleges the children were poisoned.
Edge, of Scottsdale, Ariz., is scheduled to be arraigned Tuesday. She was charged Monday with two counts of murder with special circumstances in the deaths of her daughter Faith and son Jaelen.
Edge lost custody of them on Wednesday in a Georgia case then texted her ex-husband, Mark Edge, two days later that she would bring the children back on Sunday, his attorney Marian Weeks said. The children were found Saturday in a Santa Ana hotel room.
Mark Edge was informed about the death of the children early Sunday by Atlanta police and was taken to a hospital for duress.
"He's emotionally, extremely distressed," Weeks said. "He is getting better. His whole focus right now is on the children."
Marilyn Edge could be eligible for the death penalty if convicted.
She was driving a car that crashed Saturday into an electrical box outside a shopping complex in Costa Mesa. She refused to get out of the car and tried to choke herself with an electrical cord as rescuers attempted to free her, Santa Ana police Cpl. Anthony Bertagna said.
Police found propane in the car but wouldn't say whether there was a suicide note.
Authorities said Edge told investigators they could find her children's bodies at the hotel.
The Edges were married for less than 10 years and divorced in December 2007, Weeks said. Marilyn Edge claimed her former husband, who routinely traveled to Afghanistan where he worked as a contractor, failed to make child support payments, according to court records.
She also claimed the children of a friend of her ex-husband were sexually abusing her kids, but the allegations were never proven, Weeks said.
Marilyn Edge was given full custody of her children in October 2009, a ruling that was later set aside after Mark Edge contended he wasn't aware of a court hearing because he was overseas and documents were sent to a wrong address. However, the Georgia Supreme Court later found there wasn't enough evidence to set aside the ruling.
Weeks said the case began to turn in the ex-husband's favor in September, when a judge reduced child support payments and ordered joint custody. At the time, Edge hadn't seen his kids in more than 1 1 / 2years because his ex-wife refused to let him visit, the lawyer said.
Mark Edge was stymied again by his ex-wife, who moved to Arizona shortly after the judge's order, saying she was getting a job transfer. He only saw his children three or four times via video phone calls, Weeks added.
"All he wanted was to spend time with his children," Weeks said. "But Marilyn could not let that happen."
At a hearing last Wednesday in a Georgia courtroom, a judge found that Marilyn Edge was alienating her children from her ex-husband and said he should be given full custody, Weeks said. It's customary for the custody transfer to happen the same day as the judge's order, Weeks said, but Marilyn Edge said the children were staying with her parents in Arizona.
The judge gave her until noon Sunday to turn over the children. On Friday, Mark Edge received a text from his ex-wife saying, "'I will see you on Sunday and I have their school records,'" Weeks said.
Lawyer Mary Ann Korre said she had only represented Marilyn Edge at the most recent child custody hearing and had only known her client a few weeks.
She wasn't aware of any reason why her client wouldn't want her ex-husband to have contact with the children. Marilyn Edge was calm at the last hearing and there was nothing to indicate she might harm the kids, Korre said.
"I received the news yesterday and I was just very shocked," she said. "It's just a very tragic situation."
From Christina Gonzalez:
"Poison", the official cause from the Orange County Coroner's office in the death of two children found at the Santa Ana Hampton Inn on Saturday. Their mother, 42-year-old Marilyn Kay Edge, has been charged with their murders in what seems to be a tragic ending to a bitter custody battle.
Edge led police to the hotel room after she drove her Honda into electrical box poles in Costa Mesa in what police believe was a suicide attempt. It now seems she was on the run with the children - identified as 10-year-old Faith and 13-year-old Jaileen - after her former husband was granted custody in Marrietta, Georgia.
"We wouldn't have been surprised if she fled, but we never imagined she would do this to the kids", said Marian Weeks, the attorney for the father, Mark Edge. Weeks explained that the father "won custody last Wednesday, when Marilyn told the court the children were in Arizona with their grandparents". She was supposed to be back in Georgia, to turn over the kids, on Sunday. Instead, police allege she poisoned them during the weekend. Charges against her include murder, with special circumstances, because of the way they were killed. It means a minimum of life in prison, if she is found guilty.
The Edges were married for less than 10 years and divorced in 2007. In 2004, she sued the Federal Government, alleging that vaccines were the cause of her son's autism. The lawsuit was dismissed due to lack of proof.
Weeks suggested that may have been the beginning of a downward spiral for Marilyn, who alleged her husband had failed to make child support payments and that one of his friends had abused their daughter.
He had barely seen the children, added his attorney. Mark Edge has been hospitalized in Marietta, because of emotional distress.
Marilyn Edge is expected to be in court Tuesday for her arraignment.
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