around Thanksgiving,
"she moved around vio-
lently inside me," Linda
said.
Linda was seven
months pregnant when
she dropped out of
school.
One month later, she
checked into a hospital.
She was depressed and
concerned about her re-
lationship with the
child growing within
her.
She remembered
watching an episode of
the "Phil Donahue"
show that focused on
women who kill their
children.
"I wasn't sure how I
would feel about her
(the baby) when she
was born," Linda said.
"There was no bond-
ing:,

Linda Solomon with her attorney.

Top: Chelsea Solomon

Above: The Canton apartment
where Chelsea died.

relationship with them to this day
remains strained.
The situation only got worse
when, in 1955, the family moved
to Farmington, where Linda and
her brother and sisters com-
prised more than half the area's
Jewish population. They often
were subjected to anti-Semitic
taunts.
Linda rarely went to any social
activities. She dreamed of taking
dance lessons or joining a folk-
singing group.
Linda married young into a
well-to-do Jewish family. But the
marriage was marked by difficul-
ty, and the couple divorced after
five years. They had one son,
Jordan.
After the hearing last week,
Jordan Solomon said his mother
"never tried to hurt me."
Linda paints a different picture.
Once, she recalled, she hit
Jordan as a child three times on
his back. After he responded, "Ma,
why are you beating me up?" she
knew she needed help. She called
Parents Anonymous in Royal Oak.
At first, she found the meetings
productive. But she became frus-
trated by participants "more con-
cerned about the snacks" served
than telling their stories.
Then she moved to Clarkston,
and driving to the meetings be-
came a chore, so Linda left the
group.
After the divorce Jordan lived
with his mother. The two "con-
stantly fought," Linda said. For
one year, Jordan chose to stay
with his father.
Linda, meanwhile, began at-
tending courses at the Michigan
Para-Professionals Institute. She
hoped to become an X-ray techni-
cian. But she lost interest after

bright little girl, Linda said. But
she also was demanding.
When Linda "needed time to
study or for myself' she would put
Chelsea, now about 19 months,
into her room with her potty seat
and a roll oftoilet paper. Then she
would shut the door and remove
the doorknobs, so Chelsea could
not get out.
Linda also had Chelsea put on
Ritalin. But after three months it
seemed ineffective, so she stopped.
In any case, Linda doesn't believe
much in the power of modern
medicine. She has long been a
health-food and alternative
medicine advocate who fed her in-
fant daughter only fresh or frozen
food. When she got older, Chelsea
was not allowed to have candy.
"Chelsea was a healthy child
physically," she said. "Emotionally,
I don't know."
Linda admitted she had little
to give her daughter because she
was constantly exhausted, "lone-
ly and down and trapped."
She did try to make things bet-
ter, she said. In fact, she was al-
ways asking for help with her
child, but no one responded. Why
was there no co-op day baby sit-
ting available?, she asked. Why
did Gov. Engler have to cancel
funds for Parents Anonymous?
And why did county family ser-
vices refuse to help out?
She tried to call a local child-
abuse hotline after a national num-
ber was broadcast on the "Oprah
Winfrey" show. Whoever answered
the phone said the number had
been changed some time ago. He
had no further information.
When Chelsea was 2, Linda
even turned to her estranged
mother. She made a plea for help
because "I felt like something ter-
rible was going to happen to me."
Her mother, she said, told her to
stop feeling sorry for herself and
pull herself together.
It wasn't only family members
who began hearing Linda's con-
cerns.
She spoke to virtual strangers,
too.
One woman remembered meet-
ing Linda at a family program,
where both she and a friend heard
Linda complain at length about
her daughter.
"She was obviously stressed,"
the woman said. "She said,
`Chelsea is a bad girl,' though in
fact Chelsea was a very sweet lit-
tle girl. There was a real feeling
that something here was in trou-
ble.
Throughout her short life
Chelsea was enrolled in various
day-care programs, at a
Montessori school and at Farrand Lr)
(3)
Elementary in Plymouth.
At Farrand, Chelsea kept jour-
nals. Linda wants them back, but
the journals are in police custody.
School officials will not discuss
the case.
Linda said she spoke about
Chelsea for more than an hour 25

She explained: "I
didn't know how I felt
about her...Here I was
going to have a daugh-
PHOTO BY JEFF KOWALSKY ter, but I was so emo-
tionally needy myself
that I couldn't really
the 1979 nuclear accident at Three care for this fetus I was carrying."
Mile Island.
Chelsea's birth was terrible.
She enrolled at Henry Ford Labor lasted twice as long as it
Community College where she had with Jordan and it was back
studied physics and algebra. She labor to boot. The intern who de-
was doing well. She couldn't wait livered the baby was "cold," Linda
to get a degree and a job. She was said. Medicaid wouldn't cover an
receiving aid to dependent chil- epidural to numb her spine, but
dren (ADC) at the time, which left Linda got one anyway. It didn't
her both "embarrassed and work.
ashamed."
"I was screaming all the way
At a restaurant in West down the hall," she said.
Bloomfield, Linda met the first
Linda found Chelsea a difficult
of two men who would play an im- infant. There were times she
portant role in her life in the corn- would "cry all night." Manuel
ing years. His name was Manuel. helped at times, "but it was basi-
He was older, divorced and charm- cally my responsibility."
ing. They were with a group of
friends, the only two who didn't
smoke. Linda hates cigarette
smoke.
Linda remembered speaking
with Manuel about art and how
she preferred drafting boards to
easels. She was surprised, and de-
lighted, when he offered to give
her one. It never materialized.
"This was," she said, "just the
Suffering from postpartum de-
beginning of the falsehoods."
pression, not to mention a lot of
(Manuel still resides in metro other "emotional garbage," and liv-
Detroit. He did not respond to re- ing on ADC, Linda kept Chelsea
peated requests for an interview.) with her in a bedroom virtually
Linda said her "heart was tak- the entire day. She began to de-
en" with Manuel, and they began spair.
seeing each other regularly. When
For a long time Linda had kept
in 1987 Linda found out she was in her car trunk the phone num-
pregnant, Manuel asked her to ber for a local family services or-
get an abortion, she said.
ganization. When Chelsea was 6
But "there was no question" she months old, she decided to call.
would keep the baby. "It was a giv-
"I'm having one of those terri-
en for me because of the kind of ble thoughts and I don't know
human being I am."
what to do," she said.
I ife, she explained, "is very pre-
Linda agreed to place Chelsea
cious to me."
temporarily into foster care, a de-
At 41, Linda found her preg- cision she described as "very
nancy challenging. She and painful." Ten days later Chelsea
Manuel had a number of argu- was back home.
ments, and their unborn baby
By the time Chelsea was 8
would react. During one fight months it was clear she was a very LINDA
page 26

Linda told an
acquaintance,
"Chelsea is a
bad girl."