Here I am locked inside my own little world
You think I don’t listen but I hear every word.
Sometimes I get frustrated because
You don’t understand.
It’s not my fault, it’s the way I am!
I wish I could say what I want to say
But I’m autistic, so that kind of gets in the way.
For those who don’t know me
They probably think I’m out of control
If only they could play my role!
There are lots of others who feel the same
A constant battle, a losing game.
For those who look after me its two steps forward but ten back
Will they ever get the answers they lack?
Family and friends try their best but they are exhausted
In desperate need of a rest.
Someday I hope they find the key
To unlock the missing piece hidden deep within me.
© 2012 Susan Logan
Young Marcus Fiesel was born on June 24, 2003 and spent the first three years of his life in Middletown, Ohio with his mother, Donna Trevino, and his two siblings, Michael and Peaches. Autistic, Marcus was described as “an awesome little guy” who loved Bob the Builder and bubbles.
He was quite active, as are most children, and his mother found it difficult to handle him. Neighbors even reported seeing his mother exhausted and crying.
Police visited the home frequently, as Marcus’ mother was a regular victim of domestic violence at the hands of her boyfriend. It was during these visits that police first noted that the home was infested with fleas, and smelled of feces. This as well as reports of abuse caused the family to become the focus of a child welfare investigation.
During a visit to the home on September 29, 2005, police observed a severe bruise on Marcus’ left buttock. In January 2006, Marcus crawled out of his second-story window and fell off the roof. Fortunately he was okay, aside from a cut to his chin that required stitches. Then in April, 2006, he was found wandering the streets alone, where he was almost hit by a car.
It was at this time, that Donna Trevino, Marcus’ mother, told police that she didn’t know if she could care for her children any more, and that it was getting to be too much for her. She handed them over to Butler County for their own well being. The kids were placed into the state foster care system.
Lifeway for Youth is a private agency contracted by the state foster care system. It was through them that Marcus was placed into the care of foster parents Liz and David Carroll in nearby Clermont County.
Liz and David Carroll were not the ideal foster parents. In addition to Liz and David, their live-in lover, Amy Baker, was a member of the household. David Carroll was arrested in June 2006 on a domestic violence charge. It was never reported to Lifeway for Youth as it should have been, even though the charge was later dismissed. It was later reported that David Carroll had a mental health issue, and if Lifeway for Youth had been made aware of it, he would have been disqualified from foster parenting.
Family and friends of the Carrolls’ believed that David was jealous of Marcus and his need for, what he believed to be, constant attention from Liz and Amy. At one point, he left Liz because he wasn’t sure he wanted to live his life with her, raising foster children.
On August 15, 2006, Liz Carroll reported to the authorities that Marcus had gone missing. She said she had taken him and three other children to Julif’s Park in Anderson Township, but she blacked out due to low blood pressure. When she regained consciousness, Marcus was missing.
The search began almost immediately. Hundreds of people and search dogs began their search, focusing on the area around the park, as well as surrounding neighborhoods. On August 22, 2006, Liz held a press conference, asking that whoever may have taken Marcus, return him. “I need help from the public to help my son, Marcus is my son. I know people think foster care is temporary, but please return him to a hospital. […] Waking up every morning and not having him run to me is very difficult. I am closer than his birth mother to him.”
However, the public began to grow suspicious of Liz and David Carroll. Not a single witness reported seeing Marcus in the park with Liz on August 15. No trace of him was ever found.
On August 28, a tip led police to a home owned by Mike Cales in Brown County, Ohio. It was there that they discovered barely a handful of bone fragments and hairs in the chimney. The remains were that of 3 year old Marcus Fiesel. Shortly afterward, Liz and David Carroll were arrested for the murder of their foster son. “I didn’t have any intentions of hurting him,” Liz Carroll said.
The tip police had received came from their live-in girlfriend, Amy Baker. She told police that Liz and David had bound Marcus with a blanket and packing tape, leaving him in a locked closet while they attended a family reunion in Williamstown, Kentucky from August 4-6, 2006.
He was left without food or water, but authorities believed he was killed by heat rather than dehydration or starvation, as temperatures in the closet may have reached 105–110 °F (41–43 °C). It was reported that they found him dead when they returned home.
Charged with murder, Liz and David were offered a plea deal: 15 years to life. While David took the deal, Liz chose to go to trial.
In his closing argument, assistant prosecutor Woody Breyer held up a photo of Marcus. “That was Marcus Fiesel,” he said. Then he held up a cup. “What’s left of Marcus Fiesel would fit in this cup. And who did it? She did it. And you know, they say you wouldn’t treat a dog like that. You know what? She wouldn’t. She took the dog with her. She took the dog with her.”
It didn’t take the jury long to find Liz Carroll guilty. She was sentenced to 54 years in prison.
As for Amy Baker, she confessed to helping dispose of Marcus’ body in the Ohio River. Authorities also believed she assisted David Carroll in incinerating Marcus’ body. However, she was granted immunity on the grounds that she would testify against Liz and David. Charges against her were dropped.
But what really happened to Marcus? In an interview from Ohio Reformatory for Women in Marysville, Liz said she wanted the truth to come out about what really happened to her foster son. “I just want to say I’m sorry for that,” Carroll said. “I am. I have so much guilt for that. I’m really sorry. I carried so much guilt for that because I am guilty for lying to people – my family, my kids. I lied to my kids. I wasn’t there, first of all, when Marcus died,” she said. “When I left, he was alive.”
Liz said she went to run errands in the morning, and when she returned home, her husband told her Marcus was dead. “I was going across the room to get the phone, and she pushed me across into my bathroom,” she said, speaking of Amy Baker. She also claimed that Amy threatened to kill her and kids if she told police what really happened. Liz claimed they were “trying to figure out how we were going to come up with a story about how he was missing and who was going to be the one.” They considered saying they lost him at Kings Island or that he disappeared at a fair, and eventually, she became the “one” who “lost” Marcus at Juilfs Park.
“I blame myself for my lies, because my lies are what got me in everything,” Liz said. “Even with (Baker’s) threats I still had the opportunity to tell the truth several times, but she did go on the stand and lie, and even had the nerve to smile at me and wear my clothes at my trial.” Liz claimed that Amy “… went into my house after I was arrested and took some of my stuff, including my clothes.”
Liz has since taken and passed a polygraph test, where she was asked specific questions about the murder. She believes that should be proof that she didn’t kill the young boy. “The prosecutors should not be happy at all, the public should not be happy,” she said. “The public wanted justice. They still haven’t gotten justice.”
The story Liz told of how Marcus died was consistent with the version told by her husband, David.
“What I really really have a problem with is that my wife wasn’t even home when.. When any of this occurred. When any of it occurred. And she (Baker) went on the stand and said my wife was… my wife and I taped him up and we went on a family reunion. That’s the problem I have, because that’s not exactly… that’s not… that’s not exactly what happened at all.
“Exactly what happened is yeah, we left him. We left him and went to the family reunion. But he was already dead.
“Amy and I we wanted to have sex you know, got… got greedy. Amy said take the kids outside we’ll put Marcus down for a nap.She was supposedly supposed to be putting Marcus down for a nap. We found out later on that… my wife and I when we found Marcus later on that she wasn’t actually putting him down for a nap. She taped him up, and she… in a blanket and… um… he died.
“So I ran downstairs and I told my wife, I was like, ‘He’s dead, he’s dead.’ She’s like, ‘Who’s dead.’ And she was like.. She was like, she was smiling at me cuz she didn’t know. She… she thought I was kiddin.’ And then after she seen [sic] my face was… white, ya know, she was like… she started freakin’ out and cryin’.
“She ran upstairs behind me. Soon as she turned the corner, she seen him, she dropped to her knees and she look at me and said, ‘What did you do?’ Like blaming me, I said ‘I didn’t do this’, I said ‘she did it’, talkin’ to Amy and Amy was like, ‘I just forgot about him. I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry.’
“My wife immediately goes to grab the phone. Amy grabs the phone, she’s like ‘No, no we can’t.’ and she’s like ‘we can’t call the cops we can’t call the cops.’ And Liz was like, ‘Well I’m gonna call the ambulance. I’m callin the ambulance.’ And Amy’s goin’ ‘no, he’s already dead, it’s not gonna do any good to call the cops, ambulance, or anything else’. Whatever.
“And Liz was like, ‘we got to, we got to’. So Amy grabbed the phone from her her and Amy got into a little, little argument. Amy started pushing her, grabbed the phone out of her hand. She started sayin’ ‘you seen what happened to Marcus. That can happen to your kids too if anything if any… if anything of this gets out’.
I’m sorry. I apologize to all the public that helped in this search and and I… I’m very sorry for every bit of my actions. I apologize, that’s what I want to say.
David and Liz are still married, communicating by mail. Liz gets to see her children once a month, and spends the majority of her time knitting hats and blankets for charity. Since her incarceration in 2007, she has seen Amy Baker. Amy was convicted on a drug charge and sent briefly to Marysville. “She would step out of line and smile and toss her hair and smirk at me,” Liz said.
As a result of Marcus’ death, in 2009, the Ohio Supreme Court adopted Rule 48, which provides a guardian ad litem for each foster kid. That person is the liaison between the court and the foster care system and is supposed to assist a court in its determination of a child’s best interest. The state of Ohio also revoked the license of Lifeway for Youth, the foster care agency that placed Marcus with the Carrolls.
If he were still with us, Marcus would be 18.
Here’s another story about a boy who went missing. Unfortunately DeOrr Kunz Jr. has still not been found.
