Paul Lagoe

My Paul was born on Friday January 4, 1980 at 2:09pm.

I had been in labor since the evening before and hadn't progressed very far when about 9 am the doctor came in and broke my water. I wanted a little boy very badly. I was so excited when he came into the world and so was his father. We decided to name him Paul Edward Lagoe, Jr. We called him Pauly Ed so that we could distinguish between the two of them.

I was just 17 years old and thought that a baby would make up for all the things that I didn't get in my terrible home life. Paul Sr was almost 20 years old and my second boyfriend in my life.

I was a stay at home mom for the first year of my son's life. I didn't want to miss any of the first things that happen in the first year of a baby's life. I was young and content for the most part but I didn't like spending all of my weekends at his parents' house. I wanted to do things with people our age, nothing against his parents.

Right after Paul turned a year old I went to work. I worked with many of my friends from school. Well my friends were going out after work (I worked the 3-11 shift) and stayed out until the bars closed. They all hung out at a bar 2 blocks from my house. Paul worked 3-11:30 and he would not want to meet me out after work. He went home instead and relieved the sitter. I wanted to work the same shift so we could be a family and spend time together.

Well with my hanging out with my friends and seeing more to life than staying home and going to my son's grandparents house every weekend. I begged and begged my son's father to do more with me and with people our age but he refused. So, needless to say we grew apart. My son's father started becoming abusive and I couldn't deal with it. I didn't think it was a good relationship for my son to be in.

I finally got the nerve up to move. My son was never the same after his father and I split up. My son's father married 6 months after our break up. He never paid much attention to his son and even at 18 months my son had his father on a pedalstal. He grew up resenting me and feeling that I was the reason that his father never spent any time with him. Of course, it wasn't but how do you tell a young child that?

When my son was 2 1/2 I met a man through some friends who was an alcoholic. I thought that I could change him (I was 19 at the time and thought I could change everything). After I turned 20 Gary "Casey" Jones convinced me to have a baby. I wanted a little girl to go with my little boy and decided to have one with him as a baby would make him stop drinking. Yeah right.

I worked part time and was home every night cooking dinner and being a parent. I didn't go out much any more and started to keep me from my friends and family. He kept going out drinking and I lived in the country with no car as he had it. I was always home and taking care of the house. He would come home from drinking and start beating me. He would accuse me of things that I wasn't doing. I am sure my Paul was awaken during these times and just stayed quiet.

One time after my second child was born Kari Marie Jones, I was at a friends house because I was trying to get away from another abusive relationship, he found me. I thought he was going to kill me, so I moved in with my father and step mother for 6 months.

After I moved out of my father and step mother's place and into my own, Gary started harassing me and showing up drunk. I had to call the police many times to have him removed from my house but would never press charges.

I had had problems with my son all during this time. Gee I wonder why. He kept throwing his father in my face and how his father wanted him to move in with him. I couldn't take it any more and let him move in with his father as the behavior problems were bad. I thought that living with his father things would get better. Boy was I wrong.

About a year after Paul went to live with his father, his father and his wife split up and his father dumped him on my door step. Also during this time I met my husband Ernest Seymour and after knowing each other 2 months pressured me into marrying him. Things were in the honeymoon stage and he seemed like the right one. Well was I wrong again!!!!

My son came back and he wanted his father who once again wouldn't have anything to do with him. My husband didn't spend anytime with him. Paul wasn't his child. My husband was too busy playing softball and running around while I stayed at his mother's house waiting for him.

Well one day my son had come home from school and I found a note and some bad grades from his teacher and showed it to my husband. My son lied about it and my husband spanked him every time he lied. My son still kept refusing to tell the truth. After about 15 minutes of this my son finally told the truth. My husband was trying to get him to admit to it. Well the next day his but was so black and blue like I never saw. I should have turned him into child abuse but I was afraid. I felt so bad for my son and didn't know what to do.

I had gone into school for the first parent teacher conference and found out about all the problems the teacher was having with Paul. He was quite the class clown. I suggested to the teacher to have him start counseling there at school and she agreed. It didn't do anything, as I later found out.

My husband started becoming abusive and I finally couldn't take it anymore. Here I was 25 with 4 small children and the last 2 were 15 months apart. My husband was never home and refused any responsibility for any of the children even though 2 were his.

I made my husband move out and he moved in with mommy. I let him back and he promised to change. Well I was living in a place that my father and step mother owned and they threw me and my children out of the mobile home. I was working on my marriage and they didn't approve of it and so they didn't want me living in shier mobile home anymore.

I decided to go to school and get a good job when Paul was about 9 years old. I was tired of the dead end jobs. While I was going to school he seemed to be doing better. He was always a class clown and was stealing things. His father was never in his life with the exception of Christmas.

Just before Paul turned 10 I found papers that stated that he liked doing drugs. He had been caught smoking cigarette which he was punished. I didn't spank very often but took away his tv, games and grounded him. He just kept getting worse.

From the time Paul turned 10 until he was 12 he was in foster care. I had gone back to my husband and trying to work things out. I wanted all of my children together.

We had been going to Catholic Charities for counseling but he would never talk and everything was just fine. During this time I had also met my second husband who was an alcoholic (surprise on that one!) and didn't see the signs. He did hide things well.

So here I was in another bad relationship and can't figure out why my son was behaving so badly and stealing big things from the stores now. Then he kept running away from home. He refused to come back home and refused to even have contact with me. Of course, his father's family blamed me for everything. He went to live with his Aunt and Uncle for awhile and while living with them he stole my step sister's car.

Finally they stopped blaming me for everything and saw my son's true colors. My son still refused to have contact with me until he was 18 years old. When he turned 18 he came to me for a visit. I was so happy that he seemed to finally turn his life around.

Well what I didn't know was how bad he was into drugs and for how long he had been into them. My son always came to me after that point when he wanted something. I always tried to help him as I loved him so much and wanted him in my life.

I was married to my second abusive husband and he refused to let my son live with us because of his past. He was my son after all and I couldn't stand to see him homeless. My son was almost killed in a bad car accident. He was speeding and took a curve too fast and totaled his car. There were 3 other kids in the car with him and one girl in the back seat was hurt bad and air-lifted to the hospital.

My son started writing bad checks and doing other things to go to jail. He also had a baby on the way with a young girl that he claimed he loved so much. While my son was in jail he turned 19 and on January 6, 1999 his son was born. He missed out seeing his son born.

I talked my husband into letting my son live with us when he got out of jail. Paul got a job and was working nights. I don't know what happened but the job didn't last long. I am sure his attitude and his drug habit had something to do with it.

Well he stole a camera from my husband and my husband pressed charges against him. Shortly after that I moved out of this abusive relationship. My son had showed up where I worked with no place to live and I let him stay with me.

He then stole $3,000. worth of jewelry from me and I pressed charges. I felt he needed to except responsibility for his actions. I did my best to make up for everything he had gone through during his childhood and I couldn't believe he did this to me.

In September of 1999 he had overdosed on drugs and almost died. When I went to the hospital to see him, they told me he had everything but morphine in his system. He then went from the hospital to jail.

He then went to Dick Van Dyke rehabilitation center. He then went into a half way house and was found with drugs in his system and kicked out. During this time he had been diagnosed with Bipolar. Had been on medication and once out of the half way house stopped taking it.

He had been at my house and there was a warrant for his arrest and I called the police and told them where to get my son. I didn't want to get in trouble and he needed to be accountable for his actions. My son would never speak to me again.

I had been thinking of contacting him but before I could it was too late. Two days before September 23, 2001, I received the horrible news that he was found hanged in his jail cell, I had a bad feeling something was going to happen.

I feel guilty for his life being so bad and not being able to say all the things I wanted to or even goodbye.

I have been awaken twice by foot steps and I feel that it is him watching over me. I hope he really knows how much I love him and miss him.

Marie
Mother of Paul Edward Lagoe Jr
January 4,1980 - September 23, 2001

If anyone wants to read his story from the newspaper, you can go into www.poughkeepsie.com. There is a section on mentally ill and suicides with those in jail.





To Marie, Paul's Mom