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Accused mother breaks down
TAUNTON — Karen E. Robidoux collapsed into tears yesterday when the image of her infant son Samuel, whom she and her husband allegedly let starve to death on the instructions of God, flashed across a television monitor in the courtroom where she is on trial for second-degree murder.
Robidoux’s emotional breakdown took place in front of the Bristol County Superior Court jury hearing the case, prompting her lawyer, Joseph Krowski, to accuse Bristol County prosecutors of mounting an immoral prosecution of a woman Krowski contends was trapped in a religious cult.
“It’s not right. It’s not justice. It’s not moral,” Krowski told reporters.
But Walter Shea — a Bristol County assistant district attorney who obtained a first-degree murder conviction against Robidoux’s husband, Jacques, in 2002 — replied: “Look at what they did to their kid.”
In 1999, Karen and Jacques Robidoux were members of a religious sect in the Attleboro area called The Body when Jacques’s sister, Michelle Mingo, had a “leading” from God that Karen Robidoux was too vain and should feed her son only from the breast, according to testimony and court records. Karen Robidoux was also told to drink only almond milk.
At the time, Karen Robidoux was pregnant and slowly stopped lactating. Samuel Robidoux died 51 days after the feeding regimen was ordered, three days short of his first birthday. His body was buried in Baxter State Park in Maine, near the remains of another child of sect members, who said that baby was stillborn.
Karen Robidoux regained her composure after about 20 minutes with Robert Pardon, a counselor who had persuaded another judge to remove other sect members’ children from their homes. The sect, comprising three interrelated families, is led by Jacques’s father, Roland.
When testimony resumed, the jury for the first time heard from a former sect member in whose Attleboro home Samuel Robidoux starved to death.
Daniel Horton, who was then a member of the sect and believed the “leading” that Samuel get only breast milk was an order from God, recalled seeing a healthy Samuel Robidoux.
At the time, Jacques and Karen Robidoux and their four children were living with Horton, his wife, Renee, who is Karen Robidoux’s sister, and their four children.
“He seemed like any other normal kid,” Horton said, adding that Samuel Robidoux was beginning to walk and had started eating solid food.
But beginning in March 1999, and lasting 51 days, Samuel Robidoux was denied anything but the small amount of breast milk his mother could produce. Horton saw a marked change in the child’s health. Horton “didn’t see him cruising around anymore. He seemed to be losing weight on a daily basis.”
Horton, who is now the father of five children, said he never intervened. He also said he did not turn to authorities for help, because he was wholly convinced that Roland and Jacques Robidoux were getting direct instructions from God. But he did confront Jacques Robidoux, who wrote that he expected to lay his hands on his son and bring him back to life if he died.
“I thought you said he wasn’t going to die,” Horton said.
“I didn’t know he was going to die,” Jacques Robidoux replied.
Horton, who left the sect within two weeks of Samuel’s death, and two other prosecution witnesses gave detailed accounts of the evolution of what began as a mainstream Bible-study group in the late 1980s into a closely controlled “cult.” He said its leaders dictated what its members wore; banned books, eyeglasses, and modern medicine; and warned that anyone outside The Body was probably an agent of Satan.
Nicole Kidson, a daughter of Roland Robidoux, testified that she was involved in the sect for about a decade and firmly believed her father had a special connection to God during that time.
She said “clarity” began to arrive after sect members shunned her for putting on eyeglasses. Her husband helped persuade her that the “leadings” from God and holy “teachings” were not divinely inspired.
“It was whatever came into somebody’s head,” she said.
Yet Kidson appeared to bolster Karen Robidoux’s defense when she described the role women had in the male-dominated sect. “We were baby machines . . . especially Karen,” said Kidson, who contended that Robidoux was nursing two children, including Samuel, when she became pregnant again in 1999.
“She was totally exhausted, worn out, and she didn’t want to have another child right away,” Kidson said.
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