‘It seemed there was nothing we could do'

[Guest guest]

http://www.telegram.com/article/20100627/NEWS/6270538/1116

Sunday, June 27, 2010

`It seemed there was nothing we could do'

By Lee Hammel TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF

PRINCETON — Odgren stopped receiving invitations to birthday parties when

he was a second-grader. As a child suffering from Asperger's syndrome, he was

isolated and desperate to have friends, according to his parents, and

Dorothy Odgren.

While other children his age mingled easily with their classmates, their

youngest son's social circle was small. His mother recalls having to intercede

on his behalf.

" I begged the (other) mothers, `Please let your son come see my son,' " Mrs.

Odgren said. " He didn't know how to make friends. "

The ordeal of living with Asperger's, a form of autism, has been a lifelong

companion for the Odgrens, who two months ago watched in a Woburn courtroom as

their son was convicted of murder in the first degree.

A Middlesex County jury rejected Odgren's insanity defense and he was

sentenced in April to life in prison without possibility of parole for the Jan.

19, 2007, stabbing death of F. Alenson at Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High

School in Sudbury.

The 15-year-old angelic-looking freshman was stabbed in a school bathroom before

the start of classes and his mother, father and two siblings never again saw

alive the promising youngster they sent to school that day.

For the Odgren family, the loss of their son and brother has been a lifelong

process. Odgren, 16 at the time, and suffering from mental illness and

Asperger's, took a kitchen knife to school and plunged it into Alenson's

heart. Fearful from the King novels with which he was obsessed,

Odgren believed that the 19th would be a day of doom — a fear that proved only

too correct.

Two families will never be the same.

The Odgrens resisted interviews before, during and immediately after the trial.

But earlier this month they agreed to discuss their son and the impact of mental

illness on an individual, his family, and his community.

The Alensons could not be reached for comment.

The Odgrens acknowledge the lack of sympathy for both mental illness and the

legal defense of not guilty by reason of insanity.

At trial, prosecutors focused on Odgren's deliberate transportation of the

knife from his home at 181 Ball Hill Road to the high school, his history of

discipline problems and his boast to fellow students in a forensics class that

he could commit the perfect murder.

Odgren, a University of Massachusetts Medical School cell biologist and

's father, said prosecutors, with the support of the judge, mistakenly

asserted that 's IQ of 140 meant that he had to be able to control his

actions and appreciate their wrongfulness. " So they presented him as this

genius. "

" But he couldn't get himself ready for school in the morning because he couldn't

remember that he was getting dressed and the next thing he had to do was get

breakfast and put his things in his backpack and brush his teeth. That was far

too long a list of sequential tasks for him to manage, " Mr. Odgren said.

Mrs. Odgren, 's mother and a former school nurse, said the family cast a

wide net to figure out what was going on with her son.

" And what happened was mental illness, " she said.

The general population, she said, is not willing to accept that a mental illness

could trigger the horrible events that have consumed two families.

" Because it's more like an eye for an eye or a son for a son, " Mrs. Odgren said.

" That seems to be the gut reaction of a lot of people. But it's more complicated

than that. "

Mrs. Odgren did not want to go into details about how her son is dealing with

life at Bridgewater State Hospital, the maximum security hospital operated by

the Department of Correction where Odgren is confined.

" He's coping, " she said.

Comfort for the family has come from both friends and strangers over the past

3-1/2 years.

Taped to the walls of the Odgrens' kitchen and laundry room, inside a one-story

yellow house with green trim surrounded by gardens, are more than 300 greeting

cards showing support — some from people they've never met.

Such support helps but there is weariness in Mrs. Odgren's voice when she

recalls the battles she fought over the years to get what he needed.

" We love our child and we tried to do everything we could for him. We involved

as many individuals as we could in all sorts of fields to figure out what was

going on. "

Mr. Odgren said the public perception of Asperger's should not be derived from

the " horrible tragic incident involving . "

Her son has a number of psychiatric conditions, including depression, anxiety,

attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and bipolar illness, his parents said,

and some or all of those are responsible for what happened.

But Mr. Odgren acknowledged that the Asperger's — " the social cluelessness " and

the bullying and teasing that can come with it — contributed to the outcome.

Not picking up on the clues from others that they may not be interested in a

subject on which Odgren was obsessed — volcanoes or carnivorous plants, for

example — remarks completely off-topic or trying to answer all of a teacher's

question, comes with social costs, his parents said.

" If somebody wasn't mean to him, just said hello to him in a way that was nice,

he would think that they were his best friend. Not getting those social cues

sets up lots of situations for ostracism, bullying and teasing, which happens a

lot, " Mr. Odgren said.

Problems reached a crisis in seventh grade, and the Wachusett Regional School

District transferred Odgren from the Prince School in Princeton to

the Caldwell School in Fitchburg, an alternative school run by a collaborative.

It was a disaster of unruliness and fights that resulted in their son curling

into a fetal position when he got home, with acid reflux, stomach pains and

clinical depression, Mr. Odgren said.

The parents put a stop to it after about two months and, over the objection of

Wachusett Regional, enrolled in Pathways Academy, a school program at

McLean Hospital in Belmont.

That came as a complete relief to Odgren, his father said. The state Bureau

of Special Education Appeals ordered Wachusett to pay for the school in Belmont.

From there Odgren went to a more challenging academic program at The

Learning Clinic in Brooklyn, Conn., and then was ready for more freedom,

according to both the Odgrens and Lincoln Waterhouse, a Wachusett special

education coordinator.

The Odgrens say they found a small structured program with about 40 students in

Belmont in 2006. They said their son was accepted in the school, which the

Odgrens asked not be named, and there were meetings in June involving Mr.

Waterhouse, school officials and others.

But there is disagreement over what happened next.

Mrs. Odgren said Mr. Waterhouse called the school " an excellent placement " for

and that Wachusett would agree to pay for it.

Mr. Waterhouse said he went to the Belmont school only to learn about the

program. He said the school, which was not approved by the state Department of

Education, did not provide the special education and clinical support that

Odgren needed.

He said Wachusett would not agree to it unless there were no appropriate

state-approved program available.

Of course, he said, the Great Opportunities Program at Lincoln-Sudbury Regional

was available, and everyone, including the parents, agreed to that program. Mrs.

Odgren said that, in fact, she and her husband expressed their objection to

Lincoln-Sudbury as being too large and unstructured for their son.

When they learned at the end of July that Wachusett reversed its position, she

said, " to be quite honest I feel like that if I had gone through the (appeal)

process of the Department of Education I would have gotten in " Belmont, and

he would not have been at Lincoln-Sudbury.

" I am very tenacious when it comes to that. "

But the frustration of someone who has fought one too many fights had also taken

its toll. " We thought we had it. They said yes. Now they said no. I mean what

are you going to do after all of these years of doing this with ?

" Look how much we've done for this kid. He's a great kid. We want the best for

him. No matter what we do it's like BAM! BAM! Obstacle, obstacle, obstacle. So I

jump over that one, jump over that one, jump over that one. It's like that for

any sped parent. "

The Odgrens wanted to have a psychologist they had been working with, a positive

behavior intervention support specialist, ease their son's way into

Lincoln-Sudbury, but that was rejected, even though they offered to pay for it

themselves, they said.

Mr. Waterhouse said the Great Opportunities program already had a psychologist,

, with the necessary expertise.

While Odgren told his parents that things were going well at

Lincoln-Sudbury, they found out after the homicide he had brought a pocket knife

and a toy gun to school. They said that those were confiscated but returned to

Odgren at the end of the day, and they had not been informed.

If they had known they would have pulled their son out of school, because those

were an indication that he felt unsafe, which had led to trouble in previous

years, they said.

Lincoln-Sudbury Superintendent-Principal Carpenter did not return phone

calls seeking comment.

T. Hinchey, a lawyer for Mr. , said he could not comment because

Mr. and Odgren are being sued by the Alenson family. Mr. , in

court papers, said information had been withheld from him and he denies

responsibility for the homicide.

Both Mr. Waterhouse and the Odgrens agree there was nothing in Odgren's

past that could have led anyone to believe that he would kill.

" I feel that we made decisions based on the information that we had at the

time, " Mr. Waterhouse said. " I don't feel the district or the family were in

disagreement as to what was appropriate. We felt this (Lincoln-Sudbury) program

was appropriate.

" It's hard for me look back and find things that we might have done

differently, " Mr. Waterhouse said.

While there were times he wished some things had been done differently, Mr.

Odgren said, " for the most part I think Wachusett has acted in good faith.

They've gone to great lengths to accommodate 's special needs. "

Odgren can receive visits at Bridgewater State Hospital Mondays, Tuesdays

and Wednesdays.

His older brother, , leaves Princeton about 3 p.m. and returns about

8:40 p.m. once a week; and Mr. and Mrs. Odgren make the 150-mile round trip once

or twice a week, or sometimes other family members visit, so that Odgren

has the maximum allowed visits.

The events of the past 3-1/2 years are " the worst imaginable thing that could

ever happen to a family with one possible exception, and that would be the

Alensons, " Mr. Odgren said.

Mrs. Odgren said they were constantly confronting a stacked deck.

" You know what I think? I think we lost our child when our child was born. And

it just seemed like there was nothing we could do. "

[Guest guest]

Murder is murder and dead is dead. I don't see anything here that tells me that

this boy didn't know what he was doing when he murdered someone else.

Administrator