·
Julie Schenecker, 54, was
found guilty last year of murdering her son Beau, 13, and daughter Calyx, 16,
in their Tampa, Florida home in January 2011
·
. In a jailhouse interview,
she has now revealed she does not regret it
·
. She claimed her son was
being sexually abused - but would not say by whom - and that her daughter was
struggling with mental illness
·
. Authorities said she had
admitted to shooting the children for being 'mouthy' and her journals detailed
how she was going to kill them
The wife of a U.S. Army colonel who shot her two children dead four years ago says she does not regret it.
Julie Schenecker, 54, was convicted last May of shooting her son Beau, 13, and daughter Calyx, 16, in their upscale Tampa Bay, Florida home in January 2011 while her husband served overseas.
Now in an exclusive jailhouse interview, she has claimed she pulled the trigger to 'save' her children, despite previously admitting to authorities that she had shot them for being 'mouthy'.
When asked by ABC Action News in the interview if she regretted the shooting, Schenecker, a former military linguist, shook her head.
No apologies: Julie Schenecker, pictured in an interview from jail, has said she does not regret shooting her 13-year-old son and 16-year-old daughter dead at their home in January 2011
'I saved them,' she said quietly.
She claimed her son was being sexually abused - but would not say by whom - and that Calyx had told her she was suffering from mental illness. She feared the girl would be attacked, too, she said.
'I was raped as a virgin and my whole life has been a mess,' Schenecker told ABC. 'I came from a great family. They protected me. And this still happened. I couldn't let it happen to Calyx.'
But police disputed the claims, saying she had admitted to killing the children for being 'mouthy'.
Last year, the court also saw pages from her journal that detailed her plans to kill them in the days before their murders, as well as entries after she carried out the killings.
'I offed Beau on the way to practice,' she wrote. 'I accidentally shot the window then shot him. One in the side of the head and one in his mouth because he became so mouthy just like Calyx.'
Killed: She shot her son Beau, inside their car before going to the room of her daughter Calyx, and shooting her as she did her homework. She then forced her daughter's mouth into a smile, she said
Emotional: She sobbed throughout the interview as she claimed she'd killed her children to 'save' them
Speaking to ABC Action News, she said that she shot her son as he went to tie his shoelace. The boy's body was found inside her car in the garage.
Afterwards she walked to Calyx's room and shot the girl in the head as she was doing her homework, Schenecker said in the interview.
'Shot the two mouthy mouths in the mouth after shooting them in the head,' she wrote in her journal.
In the interview, she admitted that only one side of Calyx's mouth appeared to be in a smile when she lay dead, so she forced the other side of her mouth to smile as well.
Both the children were covered in blankets when authorities went to the home after Schenecker's mother had contacted them, worried that she had been unable to contact her daughter.
Schenecker was found covered in blood and passed out at the house. She was taken to hospital and was later charged with two counts of first-degree murder.
Speaking in the interview, she said that she had initially only intended to kill herself but when she went to buy a gun, she was unable to take the weapon home the same day.
Plot: Pages in her journal showed how she detailed the killings long before carrying them out - despite claiming in the new interview that she only thought about killing them at the moment she shot them
In court: Schenecker is seen during her trial in a Tampa courtroom in April 2014. Her attorneys tried to prove that she was insane at the time of shooting dead her children but the jury rejected the argument
Parker Schenecker, pictured in court as his wife was found guilty last May, was serving in the Middle East when she shot their children. She wrote in her journal she thought he was going to divorce her
'I had to wait,' she recalled. 'If I had gotten it the day that I went to the gun store, I would have killed myself that day.'
Despite the journals detailing how she planned to kill the children, she said in the jailhouse interview that she did not wake up that day thinking she would kill them.
Instead, the thought to take their lives only came seconds before she pulled the trigger, she said - but she added that she remembers little about the murders.
'I don't understand what happened that day,' she said. 'So I don't know how to make you understand, what happened that day. That is the problem.'
She claimed she had struggled with alcohol and painkiller addiction, and she had a history of mental health issues, including clinical depression.
At her trial last year, her defense team had tried to argue that she was insane at the time of the killings.
Former life: The couple, pictured in happier times, were married for 20 years after meeting in the military
Scene: Police surround the couple's upscale home in Tampa following the discovery of the bodies
All six mental health experts who testified at her trial last year said Schenecker was mentally ill, but three experts called by prosecutors said she was legally sane when she shot her children.
The jury rejected her insanity plea and she was convicted of the two murders and sentenced to life in prison without parole. In her jailhouse interview, she said she had wanted to get the death penalty.
Her husband of 20 years, Parker Schenecker, who divorced her a few months after the killings, said there was never any indication she would hurt the children.
The Army colonel was on a 10-day deployment to the Middle East at the time of the murders.
In his children's memories, Mr Schenecker has created a memorial fund that has provided scholarships for promising student leaders, artists and athletes.
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