The man accused of murder in the beating death of his 10-year-old stepdaughter in Stockton Springs frequently beat his first wife before their relationship dissolved more than a decade ago, the woman says.
During the six years that Kathleen Carrillo was married to Julio Carrillo, from 2000 until their estrangement in 2006, he would hurt her two or three times a week, including one incident for which Julio Carrillo was arrested, she said in a phone interview Monday.
“He started controlling me, telling me he wouldn’t let me do things,” said Carrillo, 66, of Louisville, Kentucky. “I couldn’t hardly talk to anyone at work. He wouldn’t ever let me come and see my family. When I left the house, he had to be with me. I could never go by myself.”
Julio Carrillo, 51, and his current wife, Sharon Carrillo, 33, were charged Feb. 25 with depraved indifference murder after Marissa Kennedy was found dead in the Stockton Springs condominium where the family was living. The cause of death was battered child syndrome.
Sharon Carrillo was Marissa’s mother. Each face up to 25 years to life in prison if they are convicted.
The Carrillos are both being held at Two Bridges Regional Jail in Wiscasset, where Julio Carrillo was assaulted by another inmate Saturday and sustained minor injuries, authorities said.
Police say Julio and Sharon Carrillo admitted to beating Marissa at least once a day since October, sometimes so brutally that a prosecutor described the treatment as torture. She died from extensive injuries Feb. 25, when the Carrillos found her unresponsive and tried to stage her death as if it were an accident.
Sharon Carrillo’s grandparents, who raised the girl for the first 7½ years of her life, plan to transport Marissa’s remains to New Windsor, New York, where she will be buried. “She was more like a daughter than a granddaughter,” Joseph Kennedy, her grandfather, told News Center Maine (WCSH/WLBZ) on Tuesday.
Julio and Sharon Carrillo have two other children, ages 1 and 2, and Sharon Carrillo is seven months pregnant with the couple’s third child together.
FIRST WIFE WAS HOSPITAL CO-WORKER
Sharon Carrillo’s attorney, Chris MacLean, has accused Julio Carrillo of beating his wife and manipulating her, and said that despite her statements to police, Sharon Carrillo may not have participated in the beatings of her daughter. Neighbors in Bangor also have described Julio as abusive to his wife, and recalled multiple visits by police.
A check of Julio Carrillo’s criminal background in Kentucky showed only traffic violations. But the arrest described by his first wife appears to correspond to a 2000 conviction for domestic violence assault in Kentucky that was mentioned by a prosecutor at Julio Carrillo’s first appearance in Waldo District Court in Belfast.
Carrillo met his first wife at a hospital in Shelbyville, Kentucky, where they both worked as housekeepers, and after a few months of dating, Carrillo proposed, Kathleen Carrillo said. They were married in May 2000.
“I was happy about it” at the time, she said. “I didn’t really know what I was getting into, really.”
While he was nice to her at first, Julio Carrillo’s behavior changed within months of their union, she said.
The first time he hurt her, Kathleen Carrillo said she was getting ready for work and something set him off. “He grabbed me by my face and my nose started bleeding,” she said.
Carrillo said she could never fully explain her husband’s anger toward her. He did not drink or do drugs that she knew of, and he would become enraged over mundane things, Carrillo said. To other people, he was generally cordial and outgoing, she said.
“I don’t know if he was mad at the fact that I accepted his proposal, or what. I don’t know if he ended up thinking that he made a big mistake. I don’t know – I thought he loved me, you know? I’m not sure why he wanted to marry me. I’m not sure if he thought I had money or what.”
In one case, she said Julio Carrillo had forbidden her to get the mail. But she was waiting for results from a medical exam, and checked anyway.
“He got mad because I opened it,” she said. “He was furious.”
LIVING WITH PARENTS, BREAKUP IN 2006
Looking back, Kathleen Carrillo also said she suspected her husband was seeing other women. Sometimes he would leave the house at night and return hours later without telling her where he was.
After Julio Carrillo’s arrest and conviction for the domestic violence assault, he was released from jail after a few months, she said. He then convinced her to move with him to Brooklyn, New York.
“He attended the anger management classes in New York, but they didn’t do any good,” she said.
She said they moved in with his parents, Julio Carrillo Sr. and Carmen Carrillo, which added a new dimension to his abuse. Her husband was pleasant to his family, but he continued to torment her, she said.
He sometimes kept her up at night on purpose, forcing her to listen to him talk. It destroyed her ability to focus during the day.
“He’d just talk to me and wouldn’t let me sleep, and I went days without sleeping. It was terrible, and I had to go to work,” she said.
Suspicions that Kathleen Carrillo harbored about her husband’s infidelity were confirmed when she received a letter from another woman who purported to be involved with him, she said.
Around 2006, Julio Carrillo left his wife and family in Brooklyn and returned to Kentucky, Kathleen Carrillo said. She suspected he was pursuing another love interest.
Kathleen Carrillo left New York a short time later and returned to Kentucky, where her sister found her an apartment. To this day, she is still not sure if their marriage ever officially ended, or if Julio simply moved on without divorcing her.
Kathleen Carrillo said she has since been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and has received counseling for it on and off.
“He’s a man you can’t trust. That’s for sure,” she said. “He’s a very dangerous man.”
INMATE ACCUSED OF ATTACKING CARRILLO
Both Julio and Sharon Carrillo are being held in lieu of $500,000 bail at Two Bridges Regional Jail.
Police said Julio Carrillo was assaulted at the jail Saturday by Paul Andrews, 34, of Jackson, Maine, who has been charged with assault and criminal threatening, both Class D misdemeanors.
Julio Carrillo was treated briefly at Mid Coast Hospital and released back into the custody of the jail.
Carrillo is being held in the facility’s maximum security unit, said Lincoln County Sheriff Todd Brackett and Lincoln County Detective Ron Rollins. Rollins refused to reveal how the men came into contact, but said no weapons were involved.
James Bailey, the correctional administrator at Two Bridges, declined to answer questions about the assault.
“These questions involve jail security procedures and I will not comment on them in the interests of protecting the safety of inmates and staff,” he wrote in an email.
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