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Plano mom faced ridicule as a child
Family says childhood brain surgery led to taunting
By JENNIFER EMILY / The Dallas Morning News
PLANO, Texas - Dena Schlosser was not yet 10 years old as she tried on hats during a family vacation in the Caribbean. None would fit, not even those made for adults.
The trip changed her life, her stepfather, Mick Macaulay, said Wednesday.
Soon the child would learn she had hydrocephalus, more commonly known as water on the brain. The condition can be the result of a hemorrhage, head injury or tumor in children.
Four surgeries would follow, taking her well into her high school years. Much of that time, she lived with a shaved head and the ridicule of other children.
It is still unknown whether those surgeries had anything to do with what could have driven Mrs. Schlosser, 35, to cut off her 10-month-old daughter's arms, as authorities say she did on Nov. 22 in her Plano apartment.
But Mrs. Schlosser's family says her trauma as a child never left her, even as she went to high school, earned a college degree in psychology and became a married mother of three.
Back then, Mrs. Schlosser withdrew. Her world revolved around her mother, Connie Macaulay, now 58, said Mr. Macaulay, a mental health counselor in Canada. Mother and daughter traveled the world and lived in Texas, New York and Illinois.
The pair remained close into Mrs. Schlosser's adulthood, but Mr. Macaulay said Mrs. Schlosser's world collapsed when her mother's Parkinson's disease worsened more than two years ago. Mrs. Schlosser turned to her husband, John, who was struggling after losing his job, Mr. Macaulay said. Mr. Schlosser, 35, has repeatedly denied interview requests.
Then she turned to self-described prophet and apostle Doyle Davidson of Water of Life Church in Plano. Mr. Davidson is known to lay hands on people to heal them and says he can cast out the devil.
"Dena depended on Doyle for the answers," Mr. Macaulay said. "He did influence Dena very deeply. She was a fragile soul. She was losing herself. Another way to say it is that she never found herself."
Mr. Macaulay said he and his wife believe the church's influence led Mrs. Schlosser into a postpartum psychosis that allowed her to hurt her baby as hymns played in the background. The day before Margaret's death, Mrs. Schlosser told her husband she wanted to "give her child to God," court records show.
Mr. Davidson, 72, said he's blameless. He said that he does not know the Schlossers well and that they attended the church sporadically.
"She got all the help anybody can get [at the church]. I teach them what to believe and encourage them to believe," Mr. Davidson said. "But I'm not a counselor. I do not believe professional counseling is any benefit. Jesus never counseled anybody. The apostles never counseled anybody. God's testimonies are our counsels."
Since Mrs. Schlosser began attending the church, Mr. Macaulay said, his stepdaughter's voice took on a singsong tone. She spoke only of herself, the baby and the church.
Medical complications
Dr. Jack Fletcher, a neuropsychologist at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, said complications might surface after the sort of surgery that Mrs. Schlosser had as a child in the form of delayed motor skills, clumsiness and learning disabilities.
"They're also at risk for social and emotional difficulties," he said.
Dr. Fletcher said kids don't outgrow the condition.
"It's with you forever," he said. "But most long-term problems are linked to the shunt getting clogged or blocked, which can make you physically ill."
Not long after the first of four surgeries to alleviate fluid in her brain, Mrs. Schlosser, her mother and a previous stepfather moved to Houston. It wasn't long before she needed another procedure.
Middle school and high school were tough, Mr. Macaulay said.
"She was ridiculed" because of her looks, he said. She joined the pompom squad for a year and played the flute. She traveled a great deal with her grandparents. There was a trip to the West Coast, Bermuda and several to Florida.
Her mother is Catholic, but the family did not attend church often when she was a child.
She graduated from Kingwood High School in the Houston area in 1987 and enrolled in Marist College in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., where she pursued joint bachelor's and master's degrees in psychology.
She met John Schlosser during her sophomore year, and they "were pretty quickly attracted to each other," Mr. Macaulay said.
Her mother moved to the Chicago area around 1989. The couple followed soon after because Mrs. Schlosser wanted to be closer to her mother.
Married in '91
The Schlossers married in 1991, the year after her mother married her third husband, Mr. Macaulay. Mrs. Schlosser graduated in 1992 with a degree in psychology from Northern Illinois University.
Mr. Macaulay described the Schlossers' relationship as "very connected, very attached, in some ways very romantic."
Mr. Schlosser had trouble finding and keeping a job, Mr. Macaulay said. They moved into low-cost housing that Mrs. Schlosser's birth father, Bob Leitner, helped them obtain. Mr. Leitner has not returned repeated phone calls.
Mrs. Schlosser worked in nursing homes, organizing social and recreational activities. In 1995, she was pregnant with the couple's first daughter.
About four or five years ago, the family moved to Texas for Mr. Schlosser to find work. They lived in Fort Worth until he lost his job. A couple of years ago, they moved to an apartment in West Plano.
Although the Schlossers had not attended church before, the family found Water of Life after Mrs. Schlosser heard of the church from a neighbor in 2002.
On Jan. 15, six days after Maggie was born, Child Protective Services was called after Mrs. Schlosser left the newborn alone in the apartment. Mrs. Schlosser was diagnosed with postpartum depression, and doctors put her on the anti-psychotic medication Haldol.
Mr. Schlosser's mother came to help out. CPS closed the case in August after the agency determined Mrs. Schlosser was stable.
The Macaulays came to Texas in the spring to meet their granddaughter Margaret, also called Maggie. They had listened to hours of Mr. Davidson's sermons on the Web. At her daughter's insistence, Mrs. Macaulay met Mr. Davidson because her daughter believed he could lay hands on her and heal her Parkinson's disease.
'A little feistier'
The day before Margaret died, Mr. Macaulay said, Mrs. Schlosser sounded "feistier" over the phone, while his wife said she heard "euphoria" in her voice.
"She was a little feistier than usual. She's not a combative person," Mr. Macaulay said. "I said to her, 'Unless we believe in Doyle like you believe in Doyle, we can't be close, can we?' She said, 'Agreed.' "
The next day, she admitted to a 911 operator that she had cut the child's arms off. She was found with a knife in her hand when emergency crews arrived at the home. Margaret was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital.
Neither her mother nor Mr. Macaulay have spoken with Mrs. Schlosser since she was jailed on a capital murder charge.
David Haynes, Mrs. Schlosser's attorney, said his client is improving with medication but is still not stable.
The future of the Schlossers' other two daughters, ages 6 and 9, is uncertain. They remain in the custody of CPS after officials said Mr. Schlosser did not protect Maggie from his wife. Mr. Schlosser hopes to regain custody, according to his attorney Howard Shapiro.
Mr. Macaulay said his wife's illness sometimes prevents her from speaking. He worries about the effect the ordeal will have on her already fragile health.
If convicted, Mrs. Schlosser could face lethal injection. Prosecutors have not said whether they will seek the death penalty.
"Connie dearly loves her, and I love her, and we figured someday she'd be back. That's not going to happen," Mr. Macaulay said about his stepdaughter's fervent religious beliefs.
"I don't know what the outcome of this will be. Hopefully, it's not death."
Staff writers Tiara M. Ellis and Tim Wyatt contributed to this report.