Parent’s Worse Nightmare – Domestic Violence, Anonymity, Death of Your Child – The Story of Karla Brada

One such story is that of Jaroslava and Hector Mendez and family. The Mendez’s live in a beautiful ranch style home in Santa Clarita, California, filled with memorabilia from their past, a very homey feel, pictures and treasures adorning the living room and, of course, pictures of their three daughters. Their eldest, their youngest, and their middle child Karla, who died at 31 years old, on August 31, 2011. Karla was a beautiful young woman who was a diabetes supplies medical tech, a great softball player, and loved her dog Kloe, as a mother loves a child. Karla was just getting started in life. At 31, she was dating and enjoying life, having fun and beginning to discover herself. She was also drinking alcohol and testing her limits, like most young people do. She had been charged with a DUI (driving under the influence) after a car accident. She was reportedly driving with a bac (blood alcohol level) of .08. Fortunately, she was not injured, nor had she injured others. She attended inpatient rehab and was taken in a van, with all the other patients, to AA meetings. Jaroslava and Hector wanted their baby Karla to get the help she needed and were happy to see her getting some help.

Soon after becoming a member of AA, Karla met a man there and bought a condo in which the two were living together. His name is Eric Allen Earle, and he was mandated by the courts to attend AA meetings as a condition of his parole. Eric Earle’s criminal record looks like something from a CSI TV show. It is truly terrifying the number of restraining orders that have been filed against Earle, by his ex-wife and his own father. Earle allegedly murdered Karla by strangulation after she had asked him to move out of her condo. A few weeks before her death, Earle was arrested for battery after beating Karla. Earle’s AA sponsor, Patrick Fry, allegedly talked Karla out of pressing charges, and the charges were dropped. Since 1991, Eric Earle has been charged and convicted of 22 civil cases, has 8 restraining orders filed against him and has accumulated more than 52 criminal charges.It might seem strange that he did not spend more time in jail, but his record shows that he was put on probation, with AA attendance as a stipulation, an all-too-common mandate. Continue reading →