The woman alleged to have killed a state social worker last week had a complicated history of mental health issues and abuse.
A November 2010 evaluation by the Central Vermont Medical Group determined that Jody Herring likely had bipolar disorder. The evaluation was part of a custody case involving one of her three daughters.
Court records show that Herring has been involved in custody proceedings involving all three of her daughters, now 23, 20, and 9, over the last two decades. Most recently, in July, she lost custody of her 9-year-old to a man she once accused of domestic abuse.
Herring, 40, was arraigned in Washington Superior Court Monday for first-degree murder in the shooting death of Lara Sobel, who handled one of her cases at the Department for Children and Families. Herring is also the prime suspect in the killing of three relatives who were shot to death the same day.
Herring had three children with three different men. Her first daughter was conceived as result of sexual abuse when she was 17, according to the same medical opinion from November 2010. Herring has since lost custody of each girl at some point since the 1990s. Henry Premont, her ex-boyfriend taken into custody on Wednesday after a police standoff, was not the father of any of the children.
Herring completed 10 grades of education and received her general equivalency diploma, according to the 2010 medical document. Her employment history is sporadic, and at some point, Jody Herring received Social Security Disability Insurance benefits. She lived with her aunt and her mother at different points in time, according to court records.
The father of her first child, Evan Kennison, argued in one custody case that Herring could not support her oldest daughter, now 23, because she was unemployed at the time. The fathers of her other children have successfully made similar arguments to win custody of each of the other daughters in family court.
Mental health assessments
But the recurring issue in Jody Herring’s custody cases involve her mental health, which is documented back until at least 2009. Herring has a history of mood problems and likely had bipolar disorder, according to a November 2010 medical opinion from the Central Vermont Medical Group.
A physician, who noted that he was not a psychiatrist, argued in the document that Herring’s “chief medical problem affecting her employability” was bipolar disorder. He said it was severe enough to keep her from working full-time, and that medications had so far “only normalized things a little.”
The medical opinion from 2010 included notes of anxiety-related disorders; somatic preoccupations; mood lability; “marked difficulties in maintaining social functioning”; “marked difficulties in maintaining concentration, persistence, or pace”; and “mild restriction of activities of daily living.”
“She is alleging multiple physical and physiological complaints,” the document says, adding that her mood was “noticeably irritable, hyperactive,” as early as 2009. She was living with her aunt at the time of the evaluation.
“As with most bipolar patients, a relatively normal life can be accomplished with medication,” he wrote. “It is a long and arduous task for the patient and doctor alike but an achievable one with great effort.”
He concluded: “Ms. Herring is a bright, intelligent woman, and I believe with time she will settle into gainful employment. It will be a long time, however.”
Documents asking Herring to appear at a 2011 hearing suggest that the suspected bipolar disorder was the reason she was receiving Social Security Disability Insurance benefits.
Domestic abuse complaints
In 2013, the father of Jody Herring’s 9-year-old, Edward Szczebak, successfully petitioned to have certain restrictions removed from his visitation rights. Szczebak argued in paperwork that Herring “has moved many times, is unstable, is unemployed, has left [the daughter] with relative for lengthy periods, and has not kept him apprised of [the daughter’s] location.”
The judge wrote that Szczebak was only getting sporadic visitation with the daughter since 2010 because Herring was concerned about “use of alcohol” and “allegedly inappropriate behavior.” The judge gave Szczebak more visitation, in acknowledgement that Szczebak had completed probation, had been sober for a year, and that the relief from abuse order against Szczebak had expired.
In October 2014, Jody Herring successfully petitioned for a relief from abuse order against her 20-year-old daughter’s father, whom she never married. Jody Herring alleged that Charles Setien had abused her physically and called her three different expletives “and everything else you could possibly call a woman.”
A judge in Washington Superior Court gave her a six-month relief from abuse order, which expired in April, after Setien allegedly did not appear for a hearing.
Jody Herring mentioned the abuse in her June 23 citation for allegedly driving under the influence of alcohol. The police report described her behavior as “excited,” “talkative,” “insulting,” “cooperative,” “polite,” and having “mood swings.” She also said she was taking Ritalin, a stimulant often used to treat attention deficit disorder and trazadone, an antidepressant often used for unipolar depression, anxiety, or insomnia.
Seven weeks later, Herring was arrested for the alleged murder of Lara Sobel. Witnesses of the shooting say Herring was standing over Sobel’s body yelling about the 9-year-old girl. The police affidavit says Herring was ranting about how “the police never did anything for her, about how she had been beaten by a former boyfriend and nothing was done about the injustices suffered at the hands of DCF.”
When police arrested Herring, they say she was “calm and laughing” and making jokes about the victim while she was sitting in the back of the police cruiser.
Authorities will not confirm whether Herring was getting mental health treatment around the time of the alleged murders. State prosecutors have requested a competency hearing to see if Herring can stand for the first-degree murder charge.
The Department for Children and Families declined to comment on the case, citing client confidentiality, but said they are working with the state’s prosecutors.