02/23/03
MAXINE BERNSTEIN

They were hard to miss.

Alicia M. Casey, 19, with just a few long brown locks growing from her shaved head. James C. Fitzhugh, her 21-year-old boyfriend, sporting unruly black hair and piercing brown eyes ringed in dark eyeliner.

Together, they became hardened and strong, living on the streets since their midteens. In the past few months, their lives had changed dramatically. They had a newborn and a roof over their heads.

Yet they found that life isn't any simpler off the streets.

Domestic squabbles, financial pressures, mental health problems and the challenges of parenting became overwhelming. Casey is dead. Fitzhugh sits in jail, charged with strangling her on Feb. 9. And their 3-month-old daughter is left to the care of her maternal grandmother.

Their relatives now struggle to sort out how the young couple could have withstood the perils of the streets yet been unable to navigate the everyday stresses of a more traditional life. How the young woman who hopped a train while pregnant and hitchhiked her way across the country to search for her boyfriend could have been in greater danger when she finally had a home of her own.

"We thought anytime we'd get a call that she was hurt or in trouble while she was out on the streets," her grandmother, Charlene Casey, said. "We just didn't imagine it would happen like this."

When Alicia Marie Casey was born May 11, 1983, in Tacoma, her parents were high school seniors. By the time she was 6, her parents had split. Alicia's struggle with attention deficit and bipolar disorders, and refusal to take medication, caused tension between her and her mom.

At age 16, she dropped out of school and left town.

From that time, Casey was intent on living by her own rules and refused to be controlled. Even though she had family willing to take her in, she chose to live on the streets.

"You couldn't get her to accept help from friends and family," said her father, Alan Casey of Gresham. "She didn't want help from anybody. She was determined to live her own life."

Casey met Fitzhugh in Portland. He also had dropped out of high school and clung to his freedom on the streets. He got hooked on heroin, had run-ins with police and suffered from mental health problems. Together, they'd sleep in parks or under bridges and scrounge up meals and showers at local shelters. She was intrigued by his antics. On the street, he earned the nickname "Freak" for his circuslike stunts, such as trying to pop out his eyeballs with his fingers or sticking 9-inch nails up his nose.

They crashed a few months at Casey's father's home in Gresham. He'd leave for work in the morning, and they'd be sleeping. Then they'd be out all night. Casey's dad tried to get Fitzhugh to find a job. But it was no use.

The couple hit the streets again. They became regulars at nonprofits serving homeless youth, such as Green House, Outside In and Program: Education, Art and Recreation, or P:EAR.

By March 2002, at 18, Casey was pregnant. Her mother and other adults urged her to give the baby up for adoption.

Yet nothing they could say would change her mind. She was going to see the pregnancy through, raise her own child and do what it took to get her life in order, friends and family said.

Though still panhandling for change, sleeping in parks and designing dresses out of bedsheets, she set lofty goals. She began studying for her high school equivalency certificate, took classes on parenting and prenatal care and pursued her passion for art, compiling a portfolio of oil paintings, pencil sketches and tattoos she had designed.

"She was so looking forward to getting off the streets and being mother to her baby," said Elizabeth Kavanaugh, her midwife. "She carried a large day planner with appointments and business cards -- tickets to her future."

There were setbacks. On April 26, the two were rustled from their slumber beneath layers of blankets in the North Park Blocks and cited for unlawful camping.

The prospect of becoming a dad turned out to be more daunting for Fitzhugh. A police officer saw the pair fighting on a downtown street on May 9. Fitzhugh was screaming, thrashing his hands in the air and yelling in Casey's face. He had just found out Casey was pregnant.

Three days later, police were called to Green House. Police found Fitzhugh with a bloody nose and Casey crying on the sidewalk. She told police her boyfriend had swung his bag at her belly, and she had punched him in the face.

Fitzhugh soon disappeared from town, and Casey went looking for him.

Pregnant but determined, she left with a friend, hopping trains and hitchhiking to New Orleans, Chicago and Detroit. "She chased James across the country," said her close friend, Colby Stell, "so he could be the father to his child."

She didn't find him and returned to Portland. A few months later, he surfaced, too, newly committed to standing by Casey's side.

"Starting a new life" With help from Outside In, she applied to live in a low-income studio apartment and got the agency to subsidize her monthly $468 rent. She bought a stroller by saving up $5 gift certificates she was awarded for reaching goals at Outside In. And she spent hours at the public library, searching through garden books for the perfect flower to name her baby after.

"With this baby, she was starting a new life, and she was one of the ones who was going to make it," said Kathy Oliver, Outside In's executive director.

Fitzhugh was by her side through the Nov. 12 delivery of Hyacinth at OHSU Hospital. "They were nervous but hopeful," Kavanaugh said. "They were struggling to do the best they could."

After their baby's birth, Casey nursed her daughter while living with friends she had met through church. A few weeks later, the couple moved into a first-floor, 397-square-foot studio at The Yards at Union Station. Casey's dad gave them an air mattress, two folding chairs and some kitchen utensils. Every Friday, Casey would do laundry at Green House and her street pals would help her carry the clothes back to her studio. If they were using drugs, she wouldn't let them in.

Though their rent was subsidized and they received food stamps and welfare checks, the bills mounted and parenting pressures grew.

Neighbors frequently heard the couple arguing and occasionally called police. At 1 a.m. Dec. 20, police responded and found Casey and her baby unharmed. Fitzhugh had left. She said they had been arguing but there had been no physical violence and she was not afraid of him. Police marked "call unfounded" on their report.

At 7:45 p.m. Jan. 27, police were called again.

Casey said she was cooking when Fitzhugh got upset at something she did. He grabbed a sweater and swung it in her face. He stomped on a cereal bowl and then picked up a broken piece to cut his hand. She kicked him and yelled at him to stop. He stormed out. She told police he had a history of drug abuse and was schizophrenic.

According to their report, police explained to Casey domestic violence laws "and how to obtain a restraining order."

Within the next 13 days, the couple were notified they'd be evicted for letting homeless friends sleep in the hallway or on the complex grounds. Fitzhugh was also told he'd be losing coverage for his medication for schizophrenia. And he had a criminal mischief conviction hanging over his head, requiring him to find a job, perform 16 hours of community service and attend anger management counseling.

Early on Feb. 9, the neighbor above them recalled hearing a tumultuous argument below, then sudden silence.

About 3 p.m. that day, Fitzhugh wheeled Hyacinth in a baby stroller to Central Precinct and told police he had killed his fiancee. Maxine Bernstein: 503-221-8212; maxinebernstein@news.oregonian.com