Why I’m here…

On October 19, 1992 I was blessed to become a mother for the first time. At 11:23 pm, after an extremely long and hard labor, I finally got to meet my son Nicholas. At ten pounds, seven ounces, and twenty-two and a half inches long, he was the most beautiful baby I had ever seen.  His dark hair and blue eyes, I was in love. I had never felt anything like it before, it was the most powerful thing I had ever experienced. My whole life changed, and there was nothing I loved more than being his mom. 

 Little did I know that 27 short months later all that would come crumbling down around me.  What a parent thinks could never happen, happened.  It happened to my baby boy.  He was brutally beaten by my ex-husband's girlfriend Deborah Soule and died on January 14, 1995.  Fast forward 20 years later and the 21 years to life sentence Deborah Soule (her maiden name is Deborah Barbas) received doesn't seem very long at all.  Her parole hearing is tentatively scheduled for September 2015, less than a year away. She is looking at possibly being paroled in January 2016.  I will fight her release with everything I have, and I want the world to know what she did to my son, what a monster she truly is.

Through the years

Lately I realized that people don't know (or don't remember) what happened to Nicholas. For those of you who don't know, his name is Nicholas Christian Miller.  He was my blonde haired, blue eyed baby boy.  At only two years old, he had the biggest personality, and a smile that could light up the darkest of days.  I simply  adored him. Thinking about him, literally takes my breath away.  A mother's broken heart never mends.  Most days it is hard to let myself remember just how he made me feel. It makes my heart ache, not just emotionally but physically as well.  I have found that as a parent, each one of our children has their own special spot in our hearts, their own little way they make us feel inside.  It is a feeling of  such indescribable love and joy it is hard to put into words. Then to have those feelings and no child to hold, well that is whole different realm of hell no parent should have to live through.  Especially at the hands of another human being.  There are such strong emotions attached to it, that if I let my self 'go there' all the time, I would not be able to function on a daily basis.

Deborah Soule, took all that away from me.  She ripped Nicholas right out of my arms...and for what?  jealousy?   I just could never understand it.  I still don't have any real answers about what happened that night.  Randy Miller (Nick's father and my ex-husband) was never very forthcoming about it and Deborah was just trying to save her herself. So I have been left alone trying to make sense out of nonsense. It took YEARS to accept the fact that I am just never going to understand what happened that night.  For so long I wanted answers from Randy and Debbie, but now I know, and I have resigned to the fact that I will never get them.  

Leading up to 'that night'

On Father’s day weekend 1994 Randy (my husband of barely two years) left Nick and I.  It came as a complete shock to me.  He had been my high school sweetheart, my best friend.  The only thing that had been wrong in our relationship was that he had been out all night the weekend before…come to find out later, he was with Deborah Soule.  He moved in with Debbie and her two children immediately.  I was devastated.  But I moved on and into my sister Celeste’s house with Nicholas until we got settled into our own place.  I signed up for college and signed Nick up for day care at FLCC.  I was going to do what I had to do to give my son the best life I could.  Nick had a hard time adjusting to being away from me, but after a while he started to like being in day care, and I have to say, I was very hesitant to leave him there.  I heard a lot of horror stories about abuse in day care settings and it really scared me, but they took wonderful care of him.   We were quite happy, and I look back at this time as one of the happiest in my life. 

I had talked to Randy repeatedly about not leaving Nick alone with Debbie. I did not know her well, and when Nick was there, he was there to visit his father, not Debbie.  I told Randy if he had to work on his weekend with Nick, just let me know, I would keep him and he could have him the next weekend.  If Nick cried and wanted me during the night...call me, I would come get him any time, day or night.  Randy agreed to all this, but never called.  He did skip his visitation often, looking back I am thankful for that.  At the time though it broke my heart because Nick loved his dad.  Every white car he would see he would point to and say "daddy's kuck, daddy's kuck."

In November, around Thanksgiving time, Randy dropped Nick off at my house.  I noticed immediately a little scratch on his cheek, but didn’t think much about it.  It was later when I changed his diaper that I noticed little scratches and digs in his diaper area, other little bruises in various places and his entire right ear was bruised.  So I took him to the ER, where I was treated like the jealous ex-wife and sent home.  They did report it to CPS because I had requested it.  Over the next couple of days I noticed the temple area above his  ear starting to swell (you can see this in some of the pictures I have posted on here).  This time I took him to the Doctors and was told it was ‘cat scratch disease’ so Nick was put on an antibiotic.  That was all fine and good, except at that time I did not own a cat,  but once again the Doctor would not listen to me.  (I was later told after Nick died that injury was most likely a fractured skull.)  Social Services claims to have investigated, but didn’t listen to me or the day care center.  While one of the girls at the day care center changed Nick’s diaper he pointed to the scratches and said “Debbie boo-boo”.   It was very frustrating when I was told I had to send Nick back over there or I would be arrested.  Social Services took total control over my son, and in the end were not held accountable in any way for his murder.

The day that changed me forever...

Friday, January 13, 1995.  Nicholas only had a few visitations with Randy since the November incident.  I remember Randy came to my apartment early to pick up Nick.  He ended up staying most of the day, and talked to me about getting back together.  I don't remember the exact plans that were made, but when he left I was happy at the prospect of having my family back.  I asked Randy to not take Nick because I didn't want him to be around all the fighting that would probably take place, but Randy assured me there wouldn't be any fighting.  That it would be just he and Nick.  He was going to take Nick to Chuckie Cheese and do things with just the two of them.  So he took him.....

The biggest regret of my entire life....I wish I never let him go....

  

I don't know, I think it was around 11:00 am or noon on Saturday morning, my time frame gets a bit jumbled.  There was a  knock at my door.  It was Randy with Nick.  Nick was sick and throwing up so Randy thought Nick should be home with me.  I looked at Nick and saw a red mark on his forehead.  My immediate thought was something happened to him, I knew you threw up with internal injuries...so I asked Randy what happened to Nick, and what the mark on his forehead was from.  He said Nick had a temper tantrum and rubbed his face in the carpet, he had seen this himself.  Then I asked if he was sure.  Had he left Nick alone at all?  Even to take a shower?  He responded by telling me "I was with him the whole time Katie, he even slept with me the whole night".  So I called the Dr, told him everything, even about the mark on his head, and he thought Nick just had a flu bug.  So I took care of Nick like he had a bug.  I tried to keep him hydrated...he kept throwing up.  His fever kept going up and up.  Then about 5:00 pm his fever spiked up to almost 105.  I started to panic and immediately took him to the ER.  I remember being scared driving down Dansville hill.  I kept looking back at him in his car seat to make sure he was ok.  When we got to the ER believe it or not, we had to sit in the waiting room.  Again I told the nurses what had happened, that he had been with his dad the night before, the mark on his head, the fever, the throwing up.  I remember them looking at me funny.  Finally they took him to a room, I absolutely have no idea how long that took.  Sometime in all of this Randy showed up at the ER, I never told him I was going there, so I don't really know how he knew that's where I was.  But they put an oximeter on his finger and his oxygen was 90.  He was laying in the hospital bed in just his diaper, and the side was up.  He grabbed the rail and kind of rolled on his side and said 'oooowwww'.  So I went to the nurse and told her "something is really hurting him".  Then a nurse came in to draw his blood.  I was stroking his hair and talking to him so he wouldn't see the needle and maybe it wouldn't hurt so much, then for a second I looked away...it seemed like the three of us all looked away at the same time.  Maybe it was just me, I don't know, but when we looked back at Nick, he was gone.  His pupils were dilated.  Randy put his hand in front of his face and said "Nicholas", then I said Nicholas.  The nurse must of coded, because next thing I remember I was in the hall, almost in the storage closet.  The next memory I have I see myself, I see myself drop to my knees and wail something.  Then a nurse told me I was making a scene and scaring the other patients and they took Randy and I to the hospital library.   I was left to pray.  At one point Randy asked me to pray out loud so he could pray too.  I can't even begin to describe the absolute horror it was.  During this time I managed to call my mom hysterically. I remember yelling at her over the phone to come to the hospital.  I remember a nurse coming in to tell me they were breathing for him and trying to get him stable to transport him to Strong.   Then next thing I know mom, dad, and Greg were in the library with us.  I remember mom telling me maybe if Nick heard my voice maybe it would help.  So I marched to the room where he was, past all the nurses, no one was going to stop me.  I went through door.  I saw a nurse look at me with a horrible look on her face, and Dr.  Depra saying "no it's OK, let her in".  He told me Nick was dead, and asked if I wanted to hold him. I said yes.  My memory is very spotty but they must have disconnected his breathing tube and everything else, he had a sheet on and they put him in my arms and I just held him.  I held him for hours. I remember looking up in the doorway and seeing my little brother, and the look on his face.  All my sisters came, as did a couple family friends, like Beth Yohon and Carole and Al Kuhne, my grandma and Ray we all held him.  I remember Father Ventura coming and I asked him 'why did this happen' and he just looked at me.  I don't know, if there is hell on earth this certainly is it.  I remember feeling like I could never be happy again and I went into shock....and for months I was just on autopilot....

No one knew what happened.  Dr. Depra said maybe it was meningitis.  I heard Debbie called the hospital.  I don't know why, or how she even knew we were there.  Then the Livingston County police came.  They separated Randy and I to talk.  I didn't realize what was going on.  They talked to me then left me alone, but they took a really long time talking to Randy.  I walked by the room and heard Randy tell them he was with Nick the whole night.  I didn't know at that time but looking back they thought he was responsible for what happened to Nick.  I didn't leave the hospital until 2:00 am.  By far, the hardest thing I have ever had to do was to leave my child at the hospital. I would never get to see or hold my Nicholas again.

The investigation

The next morning, the morning of January 15, 1995.  Debbie called my house looking for Randy.  She wanted to come over, I told her "no" and she said "but Randy needs me Katie".  I didn't know it at the time but Randy had gone to Sugar Creek to use the pay phone to call her.  Next thing I knew he was gone.  The police were at Debbie's apartment and they wanted to talk to Randy too.  Beth came to my apartment to be with me and so did my dad.  They were down in the parking lot when the Ontario County Sheriff came and we got the news that Nicholas died from a blow to the stomach.  My memory of it is so foggy, I don't know who even told me, if it was my dad or the police officer. Next thing I remember is gathering up all the stuff Nick vomited on, at the request of the Police Officer.

As the day went on, Randy was no where to be found. I didn't want to be alone, so I went to my parents house.  It was late afternoon  when the Ontario County police called and wanted to talk to us.  Mom and Dad drove me there.  I had never been to a jail before.   I was taken to a room with Officer Miller and Sarah Utter where I told them about everything that had happened over the past few months.  I just really wanted them to find out what had happened to my son.  

I went back home with mom and dad because I couldn't bring myself to go back to an empty apartment.  An apartment with all of Nicholas' things, but no Nicholas.

So I slept in my brothers bed.  My sister Michele had come to check on me.  I felt so tired, but didn't think I could ever sleep.  So she started to rub my head like you would a child, and I said "this is stupid, it is never going to work."  Next thing I remember I was being awakened by a phone call.  It was the Ontario County police, Debbie had confessed to murdering Nick.  It is one of those things that you think can never happen to you, but here it was happening to me.

They initially thought Randy did it because of all of the lies he told.  He really didn't sleep with Nick that night, but instead  he got drunk, passed out and left Debbie to care for Nick.  Debbie put Nick to bed on the floor in her children's room after putting her oldest daughter down in a bed, and her youngest daughter in bed with her and Randy.  There was an empty bed he could have slept in, but she put him to bed on the floor like he was just some kind of dog.  That action to me speaks volumes about how she felt about my son.  At some point Debbie came into the room during the night and brutally beat him with her six year old daughter witnessing the attack.  That's how they got Debbie to confess.  Thank God that poor little girl told the Investigators what she saw.  Not only did she beat my son, but she left him to suffer for hours without getting him the medical attention he desperately needed. She knew what she did, and she chose to not take him to the hospital, to not get him medical care. I can't imagine the fear and horror he felt when she attacked him, then to endure the hours of suffering he had to endure.  If there is evil in this world, Deborah Soule is the definition of it, and she should sit in prison for the rest of her life.  She not only took Nick's life away, but she also took away everything he could be. She ripped Nicholas away from me, and I was left an empty shell of the person I had once been. Life was no longer a bright and shiny place. It took years for me to be happy again.  I will forever feel the affects of her actions.  I wake up every morning missing him, knowing the one thing I want more than anything, I can never have. Nick was robbed of his entire life.  I was robbed out of being able to watch him grow.  No child should ever have to endure what he had to and we only know a portion of what actually happened to him.  What kind of person does this to child? To abuse a two year old baby continuously for months.  What kind of society do we live in if she is released from prison?  To be able to live free and enjoy her children and grandchildren, when she tortured and murdered a baby, my baby? For me and my family there is not going to be a parole date.  We have to endure this prison for the rest of our lives.