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| Donna Joyce Isbell |
Just the kind of thing you want to hear when the babysitter strangles your 6-year-old daughter.
On the evening of December 29, 1951 sixteen-year-old Delora Mae Campbell was looking after Donna Isbell and her older brother Roy, aged 8, while Mrs. Isbell worked at a defense plant; Mr. Isbell was stationed at the Los Alamitos Naval Base. This wasn't the first time they'd left their 2 children with Delora Mae but the 5th or 6th. I'm sure the Isbells would never have hired Delora if they'd known that 18 months earlier she had been shipped to Los Angeles from Colorado after repeatedly running away from home and presenting a danger to her siblings. Delora is quoted as saying "I often felt like strangling my brothers and sisters."
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| Delora and her Aunt Lavada |
Delora's parents & a judge thought they'd let her live several states away with her Aunt Lavada and her husband Gene since things weren't working out at home. Mrs. Campbell really thought she'd found the solution too. All the letters she'd gotten from Delora indicated she was happy & finally doing well in school.
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| Delora and her father |
Here's an interesting contrast in reactions after Delora was in custody. Mrs. Campbell said "I would rather have heard she was dead...anything except this horrible thing." Meanwhile, Mr .Campbell told the press "We could hardly believe it. I guess it was one of those things that had to happen." Yes, but not to your children.
Delora's official story to the police was after putting the two kids to bed she watched a movie on TV about a wife who kills her husband and then is given a second chance to relive her life. Afterwards, Delora experienced a vision or dream in which she saw little Donna lying in bed with a green necktie around her neck. Delora then walked into the bedroom the children shared, unable to find a necktie she, picked up a discarded sock, wrapped it twice around Donna's neck, stuffed a portion of the bed sheet in the little girl's mouth so her screams wouldn't be heard and pulled. The girl barely struggled or made a sound. Roy slept undisturbed several feet away as the murder occurred.
Once she realized what she'd done, Delora panicked and ran out in to the rain knocking on doors until finally someone answered. That individual was Dr.Sidney Willner; he accompanied Delora back to the Isbell house then alerted the police. Delora never waivered from her explanation that it had all happened in a dream state. In 1952 she was committed to Caramillo State Hospital for the Insane.
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| Delora Mae Campbell, enroute to Camarillo State Hospital |
Delora, feeling herself sane, walked away from the hospital twice during her stay there but was recaptured each time, once in 1952 & again in 1954. Eventually, but I'm not sure when, Delora Mae was released from custody. She returned to Colorado, married twice, the first union producing 5 children and died in 1984.
If you're like me, you're horrified but wondering "What movie was she watching?" I researched the TV listings for that night and have determined it's "Repeat Performance." |
| Roy Isbell holding the doll that will be placed in his sister's coffin |
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