Opinion ID: 2097592
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Background and October 29, 2004

Text: We recount the tragic events of this case that culminated in the death of Fuller-Balletta's twelve-year-old daughter. On the evening of October 29, 2004, a trooper with the Rhode Island State Police went to Fuller-Balletta's home to execute an arrest warrant that had been outstanding for fourteen years. [2] Unbeknownst to the state trooper, Fuller-Balletta was mentally unstable and in the midst of continuing paranoid delusions, hallucinations, and extreme behavior resulting from a mental illness that had been progressing for the previous few years. In 2002, during an unsuccessful run for governor, Fuller-Balletta was asked to leave a pre-election debate because she was singing. The acquittee's relationship with her husband became strained; she would sit holding a baseball bat near him as he slept and sprayed him with mace. Eventually she forced her husband to leave their home. She was convinced that she was under surveillance; she believed that spies lived next door and that her telephones were bugged. She disconnected the home's alarm system, doorbell, and smoke alarms. The acquittee detached her telephone wires from her home because she was convinced that she was receiving messages through her telephones and the home's Internet service. Fuller-Balletta insisted on home-schooling her two daughters, Marina (then, age thirteen) and Talia (then, age twelve) because she did not want them to leave the house. A few days before this tragedy, acquittee turned off the furnace in her basement and began heating the house with just the kitchen stove. Fuller-Balletta never sought psychiatric help or medical treatment for her increasingly deteriorating mental state. When the state trooper arrived at Fuller-Balletta's home shortly before 9 p.m., he explained the purpose of his visit; and, although he did not have the actual warrant, he offered to show acquittee an electronic copy of the arrest warrant. Fuller-Balletta refused to go with him to his cruiser, began cursing at the officer, and started to kick and punch him. Talia and Marina also punched and kicked the officer and acquittee yelled to one of her daughters to grab a can of mace. The state trooper returned to his cruiser and called for assistance. Three additional state troopers and two Providence police officers responded to the scene; acquittee's husband also arrived. Meanwhile, Fuller-Balletta, believing that the state trooper and her husband were part of a conspiracy against her, armed herself and her daughters with sharp butcher knives. Fuller-Balletta then barricaded herself and her daughters in a rear bedroom and set fire to the bed. She later explained that she thought it was better for her and her daughters to die than be taken by the police; additionally, she thought that the fire would spark the attention of a neighbor who was a firefighter. The acquittee told Talia and Marina that the police were there to hurt them and that they should be prepared to commit suicide. After a failed attempt to coax acquittee out of the house, the police forcibly entered the home; they almost immediately detected the smell of smoke. They removed the bedroom doorwhich had been barricadedsaw the burning mattress and found acquittee and her daughters huddled near a back wall. They threatened to kill the police officers with the knives if they entered the room. One of the children stated Mommy, just tell, just tell me, I will cut my wrists. The officers called the fire department and retrieved fire extinguishers from their vehicles. The acquittee, now holding a knife to her daughter's throat, refused to vacate the home. Fuller-Balletta's husband knocked the knife out of her hands, and a state trooper pulled her out of the smoke-filled room; the police then pulled Marina to safety through a window. Tragically, Talia was found near a closet, unresponsive; she was taken to Hasbro Children's Hospital, where she died four weeks later from multi-system organ failure caused by severe smoke and soot inhalation and burns over 40 percent of her body. The manner of death was ruled homicide.