Killer of Children Was Called ‘High Risk’

ANAHEIM —  The Anaheim woman who apparently shot her boyfriend and two children to death this week before turning the gun on herself had been described as a “high risk” to the children by an Orange County judge, who nevertheless granted her joint custody of them.

In handing down the 1991 divorce ruling that left the two children in the care of Marcia Amsden-Kyle, Orange County Superior Court Judge Nancy Wieben Stock wrote that Amsden-Kyle demonstrated “emotionality” and “instability” and could be a risk to the youngsters.

Wieben Stock is the judge who granted O.J. Simpson permanent custody of his children in December. Efforts to reach Wieben Stock for comment late Thursday were unsuccessful.

Riverside County sheriff’s deputies found the bodies of Amsden-Kyle, 38, Tarah Leigh Kyle, 7, and Scott Cameron Kyle, 9, Wednesday in a car on a desolate dirt road in Riverside, near the home of Amsden-Kyle’s parents.

Police on Wednesday also found Amsden-Kyle’s recent boyfriend, Matthew Stephen Bailey, 28, dead in the condominium the couple shared. An autopsy Thursday revealed that Bailey had been killed by two gunshots to the head and had been dead for three to four days.

Court records and interviews with family and friends paint a picture of a mother who neglected her children, often sending them to school with matted hair and dirty clothing, and a former husband who by last year was $6,000 behind in child support payments.

“They weren’t taken care of, you could tell that,” said Kimberly Brown, whose 7-year-old daughter, Amanda, was a good friend of Tarah Kyle. Tarah “always wanted attention, especially from adults, especially from women,” Brown said. “She was really full of life, but she was a very needy little girl. Anyone could see that.”

For the last five years, the children had been the subject of a prolonged court battle between Amsden-Kyle and her former husband, Jeffrey Kyle--a fight that continued in the courts until early this month.

“It’s all in the court records; she was nuts, plainly nuts,” said Jeffrey Kyle Sr. of Riverside, who said his son, the children’s father, saw his children on alternate weekends. Kyle, a self-employed truck driver who remarried and lives in Cherry Valley, could not be reached for comment Thursday.

“All indications led to this sort of thing. Her problems had been going on forever.”

Former neighbors on the street of single-family homes in Anaheim where the Kyles once owned a house said Amsden-Kyle, a sometime barmaid and caterer, often appeared intoxicated and could be heard yelling at her children.

When the couple separated, neighbors said, she began holding loud parties. The house she had once cared for with her husband fell into disrepair. At least four times within a year, neighbors said, police went to the Locust Drive house in response to noise complaints. Anaheim police declined to comment.

“I saw her banging her head against the fence one time, she was so strung out,” said Leina Molina, 76, who lived across the street from the Kyles. “Those two, they were fighting all the time. It was a mess.”

Eventually, Amsden-Kyle was evicted for failing to make mortgage payments, neighbors said.

It was then, about three years ago, according to neighbors, that Amsden-Kyle left the Locust Drive home and moved in with Bailey nearby. Meanwhile, the dispute with her former husband over child support payments and custody continued.

Jeffrey Kyle once wrote to the court, “The child’s best interests would be served if they were placed in my primary care and custody. [Marcia Amsden-Kyle] continues to file these frivolous motions which cause me to lose substantial time from my employment.”

As family and friends mourned the deaths of the four, officials at Dr. Peter Marshall Elementary School in Anaheim struggled to deal with the aftermath of the slayings, calling in psychologists to speak to classmates and teachers of Tarah and Storm Kyle.

“It makes me sick to think they’re gone,” said Michelle Davis, whose children attend the school. “They didn’t do anything. They had a life ahead of them, they had a future. Why didn’t she leave them behind? They could have had a better life than she did.”

Times correspondent Jeff Kass contributed to this story.