[imagesource:Twitter/Myfavmurder]

The daughter of the infamous ‘San Francisco Witch Killers’ has opened up about her childhood and fears of growing up to inherit their monstrous genes.

Michael Bear Carson and his wife, Suzan Barnes, went on a killing spree in California in late 1981. The unhinged couple was dubbed the Witch Killers after admitting to police that they targeted their victims because they believed them to be witches.

Jenn Carson was only eight years old when she found out that her father and stepmother were serial killers. Now at the age of 49, she is finally speaking out on what it was like growing up with the fear that she would turn out to be just like her father.

‘This type of shame is so corrosive’

Growing up in Phoenix, Arizona, Jenn explains that her birth mother was a schoolteacher while her dad was a stay-at-home marijuana dealer. It was after their divorce however that her father became ‘erratic’. He soon met Suzan, a ‘posh divorcée’ and mother of her own two children, at a party and they got married a year later. With a new wife taking a very dominant role in the relationship, Michael’s unravelling became more evident to his eight-year-old daughter.

Jenn thought of Suzan as ‘the wicked witch.’ Her father stopped being attentive to her and changed his name to Michael Bear, transforming into a man she didn’t recognize.

Jenn recalls spending weekends at Suzan’s house, which she described as creepy with only potted trees and no furniture. These weekends were filled with abuse and she was often starved.

‘I’ve had glimpses of memories my whole life of her pushing me under bath water — like holding me under and I couldn’t breathe. I’m in this house of horrors. She’s not feeding me. She’s telling me that I’m the devil. I’m going to go to hell. I deserve to die.’

Jenn finally told her birth mother about the abuse after Suzan left five long gashes on her back after scratching her. When her mother also learned that the newlyweds were planning on leaving the country, she became convinced that they were going to murder her and steal her daughter. Jenn and her mother then went on the run, hiding away from the crazy couple.

Meanwhile, Suzan and Michael had grown increasingly delusional and became convinced that they had to ‘search out and kill witches’ around the world. Their killing spree began.

[imagesource:Twitter/CrimeFeed]

In the year that followed they killed three people, Karen Barnes, Clark Stephens, and John Hellyar.

After Stephens was killed, detectives found their manifesto, which included a plot to assassinate then-President Ronald Reagan.

The couple was arrested in 1982 and charged with the three murders, although authorities believe they may have been responsible for nine deaths at the time.  Following their arrest, secret service agents managed to track down Jenn and her mother. The years that followed were incredibly difficult for the teen, and Jenn suffered from terrible nightmares.

‘By 9, I viewed every adult as a potential killer. The whole world terrified me. I also feared that I would grow up and kill people.’

Despite the trauma of having a serial killer as your parent, the young woman eventually went on to get her degree in social work and became a trauma expert, as well as advocating for the children of prisoners. According to her interview in People, she now believes that people need to understand the shame often felt by the families of criminals.

‘I want people to understand that this type of shame is so corrosive, that’s why I tell my story.’

[source:mail&guardian]