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Eryn
ALLEGRA
Classification: Murderer
Characteristics:
Parricide -
Allegra told police she killed Tristan rather than leave him with
his father
Number of victims: 1
Date of murder:
December
25, 2008
Date of arrest:
Same day (suicide attempt)
Date of birth: 1977
Victim profile:
Tristan Michael Allegra,
8 (her son)
Method of murder:
Smothering with a pillow
Location: Port
St. Lucie, St. Lucie County, Florida,
USA
Status:
Pleaded guilty. Sentenced to life in prison plus 30 years on
February 2, 2010
Allegra sentenced to life in
prison for killing son on Christmas Day '08
By Tyler Treadway - Tcpalm.com
February 3, 2010
FORT PIERCE — Eryn Allegra, the
32-year-old Port St. Lucie woman accused of smothering her 8-year-old
son to death on Christmas Day 2008, avoided the possibility of a death
sentence by pleading guilty Wednesday afternoon to premeditated
first-degree murder and aggravated child abuse charges.
But spending the rest of her life
behind bars thinking about how she killed her son, said Chief
Assistant State Attorney Tom Bakkedahl, “is probably a much greater
punishment for her.”
Shackled and wearing gold prison
scrubs, Allegra looked incredibly small as she stood before Circuit
Judge Dan Vaughn, who accepted the plea deal and levied the sentence:
Life in prison for the first-degree murder charge, plus 30 years to
run consecutively for the child abuse charge.
Allegra spoke softly and gave
only “yes, sir” and “no, sir” answers to Vaughn’s questions. Neither
she nor her attorneys, Chief Assistant Public Defender Mark Harllee
and Assistant Public Defender Alan D. Hunt, tried to persuade Vaughn
to give a lighter sentence.
According to a Port St. Lucie
Police Department arrest affidavit, Allegra, of the 2200 block of
Southeast Bowie Street, gave her son, Tristan, eight Advil pills to
put him to sleep Christmas Eve in a room at the Holiday Inn on U.S. 1
in Port St. Lucie. Between 3 and 4 a.m. Christmas morning, she is
suspected of smothering him with a pillow.
After she was sure Tristan was
dead, she slit her wrists in an unsuccessful suicide attempt, Allegra
reportedly told authorities.
In a letter to Tristan left in
the hotel room, Allegra wrote: “You’ll always be my sweet boy.”
Allegra told investigators she
started having serious financial problems in August 2007 and lost a
string of jobs before a temp agency found work for her at Liberty
Medical. Also, a man with whom she was having an affair broke off the
1 1/2-year relationship. She had been pregnant with his child but lost
the baby.
Allegra told police she killed
her son rather than leave him with his father, Michael Allegra. The
couple had been separated but never divorced.
“I am just alone,” Allegra wrote
in a journal. “Nowhere else to go. ... People move on. I just can’t.”
Allegra never denied killing her
son, giving police a graphic description of the night the two spent in
the hotel watching movies and cartoons, and how she had Tristan, a
third-grader at Mariposa Elementary School in Port St. Lucie, turn off
a cartoon she thought was inappropriate for a child.
After smothering her son, Allegra
got in the room’s bathtub and tried to kill herself by slitting her
wrists. When the suicide attempt was unsuccessful, she called 911.
In an interview soon after her
arrest, Allegra was asked by police if she considered herself crazy or
insane: “No, I knew what I was doing and I did it.
After the hearing, Bakkedahl said
he felt “very strongly that (Allegra) deserved the death penalty” and
thought he could have convinced a jury to agree; but his office
decided to accept the plea bargain, he said, because there was a
possibility the state Supreme Court could have ruled against
execution.
As part of the sentencing
hearing, Margaret Allegra of Jensen Beach, Tristan’s paternal
grandmother, addressed her former daughter-in-law.
“If you had committed suicide, it
would have been hard enough on us,” Margaret Allegra said. “We would
have been devastated. But we would still have Tristan. ... What you
have done takes my breath away. ... You took something very precious
from our lives. ... to take an innocent life, I don’t know what made
you do that.”
Catherine Whiting of Stuart,
Allegra’s grandmother, said after the hearing she “had hoped Erin
would do some time and then be released, (but) I was just kidding
myself to think I would ever bring her home.”
Where Allegra will serve her
sentence will be determined by the state Department of Corrections,
but Whiting said she’ll visit her granddaughter often, “wherever she
is.”
Port St. Lucie woman accused
of killing son on Christmas 2008 expected to plead guilty
By Tyler Treadway
- The Palm Beach Post
February 1, 2010
FORT PIERCE — A Port St. Lucie
woman accused of smothering her 8-year-old son to death Christmas Day
2008 is scheduled to plead guilty Wednesday to first-degree murder and
aggravated child abuse charges.
As part of a plea deal reached
with the State Attorney’s Office, Eryn Allegra, 32, will be sentenced
to life in prison and not face the possibility of a death sentence,
said Tom Bakkedahl, chief assistant state attorney.
“Avoiding the death penalty,
that’s the full benefit of the agreement to her,” said Bakkedahl,
adding that the decision of whether to pursue the death penalty is up
to the State Attorney’s Office.
Allegra also is charged with
aggravated child abuse, which carries a penalty of up to 30 years in
prison.
“The only question now is what
will the sentence be on the child abuse charge,” Bakkedahl said, “and
whether that sentence will run concurrently or consecutively to the
murder sentence.”
Alan D. Hunt, an assistant public
defender who represents Allegra, said the plea agreement calls for her
to receive the maximum 30-year term and for it to run consecutively to
the life term; but it’s up to Circuit Judge Dan Vaughn to decide
whether he’ll go along with that aspect of the plea deal.
Neither Bakkedahl nor Hunt would
discuss their reasons for negotiating the specific terms of the deal.
The change of plea hearing is
scheduled for 1:15 p.m. Wednesday before Circuit Judge Dan Vaughn in
the St. Lucie County Courthouse in Fort Pierce.
According to a Port St. Lucie
Police Department arrest affidavit, Allegra, of the 2200 block of
Southeast Bowie Street, gave her son, Tristan, eight Advil pills to
put him to sleep Dec. 24, 2008, in a room at the Holiday Inn on U.S. 1
in Port St. Lucie. Between 3 and 4 a.m. Dec. 25, she is suspected of
smothering him with a pillow.
After she was sure Tristan was
dead, she slit her wrists in an unsuccessful suicide attempt, Allegra
reportedly told authorities.
In a letter to Tristan left in
the hotel room, Allegra wrote: “You’ll always be my sweet boy.”
Allegra told investigators she
started having serious financial problems in August 2007 and lost a
string of jobs. Also, a man with whom she was having an affair broke
off the 1 1/2-year relationship. She had been pregnant with the man’s
child but lost the baby.
Allegra told police she killed
Tristan rather than leave him with his father. The couple had been
separated but never divorced.
“I am just alone,” Allegra wrote
in a journal. “Nowhere else to go. ... People move on. I just can’t.”
In mid-January 2009, the State
Attorney’s Office filed a second-degree murder charge against Allegra;
and in February 2009, a grand jury indicted her on premeditated
first-degree murder.
Dad says he never feared for
son allegedly killed by mom
By Ana X. Ceron - The Palm Beach
Post
January 1, 2009
JENSEN BEACH — Michael Allegra
never stopped writing his son.
He would ask him about his
friends. He would draw funny cards for the holidays. He just wouldn't
go into detail about why he was writing from jail.
"I wanted to show him I was still
thinking about him," said Allegra, 30.
It was in jail where he counted
the days to his release on Tuesday, after which he planned to see
8-year-old Tristan.
But just a few days earlier, on
Christmas, he learned that his wife, Eryn Allegra, confessed to police
that she had suffocated their son in his sleep that morning.
Allegra doesn't know why she did
it. But he does know that he'll spend the next several days taking
care of his son one last time — by planning his funeral.
Allegra said he asked Eryn out
when they were both students at Martin County High School. She was
witty and smart, if a little reserved, he said.
Then they moved in together, had
Tristan and got married in February 2000. Together all three were
their own little universe, Allegra said. But things changed.
Eryn eventually left to live with
another man, and she and Allegra agreed to share custody of their only
child.
"He was my best friend, and he
was her best friend," Allegra said of Tristan.
Allegra wasn't concerned about
Tristan's welfare. Eryn had worked at a day care center and he felt
she was good with children, he said.
About once a week, he and Tristan
would go out to dinner, or go to the mall. His son was talkative, like
him, Allegra said. And he also liked to read a lot, like his mother,
he said.
He remembered that on Saturdays
his son would wake up early, zap on the television and turn down the
volume real low. Then Allegra would ask what he was doing.
"Sshhh," the boy would whisper.
"You're sleeping."
Last year, Allegra was arrested
on a fraud charge involving prescription drugs, court records show,
and spent about five months in jail. He was out for a couple of months
when he was nabbed for a probation violation that landed him in jail
again in late May, he said.
It was in late April that Allegra
talked to Tristan for the last time.
He told him he would come to the
Port St. Lucie house where Eryn was renting a room so the two could
visit. But when he showed up the next day, the two weren't there, he
said.
Allegra hoped to see him again
after his release from the St. Lucie County Jail. Then he got called
to the chaplain's office and was told the grim news.
Since he's been back, his
parents' phone has been ringing off the hook with calls from
reporters. They all ask if he knows why. He says he doesn't, but even
if he did, it wouldn't make much difference.
"There's nothing that's going to
bring him back," he said.
Staff writer Ragel Thys
contributed to this story.
Port St. Lucie mom charged in
son's death 'courteous but not real sociable'
By Tyler Treadway - Tcpalm.com
December 27, 2008
PORT ST. LUCIE — Residents of
Southeast Bowie Street were shocked to learn that the woman they knew
as “courteous but not real sociable” is suspected of killing her
8-year-old son and trying to kill herself on Christmas Day.
According to a Port St. Lucie
Police Department arrest affidavit, Eryn Allegra, 31, of the 2200
block of Southeast Bowie Street, gave her son, Tristan, eight Advil
pills to put him to sleep Wednesday night. Then, between 3 and 4 a.m.
Thursday morning, she smothered him with a pillow in a room of the
Holiday Inn on U.S. 1 in Port St. Lucie.
Allegra then reportedly slit her
wrists in an attempt to commit suicide but was not successful. She
called 911 and was taken to the St. Lucie Medical Center, where she
was treated for minor cuts to her wrists and arms.
After being released from the
hospital, Allegra was questioned by police and confessed, according to
the report.
“She added she was well aware
that what she did was wrong,” the report states.
Curt Hawker, a neighbor on the
street in the southeast Port St. Lucie where Allegra rented a room in
a home, said she was “courteous but not real sociable.”
Larry Roberts, another neighbor,
said he often saw Allegra, either alone or with her son, a
third-grader at Mariposa Elementary School in Port St. Lucie, walking
on the street. “They seemed to have a friendly relationship.”
Both men said the close-knit
neighborhood was shocked and saddened to hear about the incident.
“It surprised us,” Hawker said.
“You think you can figure someone out, but I didn’t see this coming.”
Elaine Spaulding, also a neighbor
on Bowie Street, said Allegra “seemed like a good mom ... (who was)
very protective of her son.”
Allegra told investigators she
had been having financial problems since August 2007, saying “(I) lost
my house, I lost my job” and she didn’t want to continue living.
She said she had contemplated
suicide several times over the past few months, adding that that she
didn’t want to leave her son behind if she killed herself.
Allegra said she rented a room at
the Holiday Inn to execute her plan.
After the two ate dinner, Allegra
said, she gave her son the Advil.
“The defendant allowed the victim
to sleep a couple of hours prior to using the hotel pillow ... placing
(it) over the victim’s face, causing the victim to stop breathing,”
the report states.
After seeing that her son had no
pulse and was not breathing, the report states, Allegra went into the
bathroom tub and tried to commit suicide by slitting her wrists and
arms; but “the razor blades were not sharp enough.”
After the interview, police
charged Allegra with murder.
Allegra was an independent
contract carrier for The Stuart News off and on from August 2000 until
July. According to Sgt. Rob Vega, spokesman for the Port St. Lucie
Police Department, she most recently worked at Liberty Medical Supply
Inc. in Port St. Lucie, but that could not be confirmed with the
company late Friday afternoon.
Records show Allegra lived at
various addresses in Stuart and Jensen Beach from June 1998 to
November 2001, her maiden name was Eryn Haylee Mayer, and she married
Michael Donald Allegra in February 2000.
Records with the St. Lucie County
Clerk of Courts indicate Michael Allegra was arrested Nov. 9, 2007, on
a charge of attempting to obtain a controlled substance by fraud. He
pleaded no contest and was sentenced Dec. 12, 2007, to two years of
drug offender probation.
According to the St. Lucie County
Sheriff’s Office Web site, he was booked into the St. Lucie County
Jail on Oct. 31 for violation of probation. He’s scheduled to be
released Tuesday.
Researcher Karen Bayha
contributed to this report.
