Elizabeth Hoult Fontaine
Monday afternoon, in a California courtroom, a domestic relations judge in family court ordered the woman pictured above to return that afternoon to court with her daughters. Her custody was revoked and the children were ordered temporary sole legal and physical custody to a relative back in the State of Texas.
Although investigators are continuing to work this case, it appears clear Elizaberth Hoult Fountaine pulled the trigger that also took the life of her mother.
Found dead behind a front door decorated with a Christmas wreath, their bodies intertwined in the entryway of the home of a friend where they were staying, were Catherine Fontaine, 4, and Julia Fontaine, 2, and Fontaine’s mother, Bonnie Hoult, 67, a retired psychologist.
According to news accounts in L.A., an attorney for Howrey, LLP’s Irvine office [where she was employed], Elizabeth Fontaine filed for divorce last December. About a month ago she left Orange County and moved her daughters and mother to Houston, Tex.
In court documents, Elizabeth Fontaine, who was also a lawyer, made explosive accusations against her husband, claiming he had molested the girls and had an addiction to pornography.
A court psychologist interviewed Catherine 4, documents show, but didn’t see enough to find that molestation had occurred. There was a four-day hearing in August on whether Elizabeth acted in good faith in making the accusation. In the end, a court commissioner allowed the kids' father unmonitored visits, even as he awarded primary custody to Elizabeth. The divorce was granted in October. Records indicate no charges were ever filed against the former husband.
The mother and kids, with the court's permission, were allowed to move out of state to Texas where she re-opened the case and took her daughter Catherine to be examined by a psychologist, and 3 other experts who reported finding evidence of molestation, according to the court documents.
Within two weeks, a Texas court ordered that the father of the children not have contact with his daughters. He accused his wife of court-shopping, and that is how she was ordered back to the court in California.
The bottom line, a mother murdered her children. The person with whom we first place our trust in as children.
I expect to receive some unique "fan" emails for bringing attention to this case and for what I am about to say:
This mother is no different then the men I highlight weekly on this blog for slaughtering members of their own family.
She was a lawyer and had an upper hand in a legal system that the majority of women who live in violent relationships going through family court deal with everyday. These mothers often pay the price themselves because their child disclosed sexual abuse to them, a therapist or the courts. And many abusers use custody as a means of power and control. It is these women who often find the cell door slam shut on them because they are protecting their children. These mothers, too many to count, deal with the same issues that Elizabeth Fountain faced.
They, too, are in contempt of court because they refused to comply with a court order and turn over the child to the abuser. Most women in the family court system do not have the funds to pay for a skilled lawyer to assist them in matters of divorce and custody.
It is these women whom I directly assist or tragically write about after a homicide. The difference is Elizabeth Hoult Fontaine had a choice. Instead, she murdered her mother and two helpless children who did not deserve to die.
No I feel this case needs to highlight that a mother who is prevented from protecting her molested children needs to be seen as a secondary victim and needs SUPPORT NOT TO BE CALLED A LIAR AND RETRAUMATIZED. What courts need to hear is that a man accused needs to have mandatory psychosexual testing, www.noliemri.com testing, and until it is completely ruled out not by the mother being called a liar or the child that is too afraid to disclose to anyone other than his/her trusted mother that the father must be tested completely. Henrietta Jacobson
ReplyDeleteWe appear to have different rules and standards for women committing the exact same crime as a man.
ReplyDeleteDid this mother need to kill her children?
Why didn't she file documents and fight this ruling by the California courts?
You can highlight the case as the above person indicates the outcome would not have saved the kids. It always sounds good after the fact. And a clever sexual preadtor knows how tto pass these tests and elimante them from suspicion. What then?
Testing is not always a solution.