“Wild Grace”: a beautiful name for the nightmare of the Baekeland family (9 photos)

Many people think that family problems, violence and humiliation accompany only marginal families. One of the most common myths is that terrible things can happen to absolutely anyone, even the most wealthy, enlightened and respected.





Barbara Daly was born in 1922. Unfortunately, when the girl was 11 years old, her father died, and she was the one who found him in the garage. It is difficult to imagine what was going on in the soul of a teenage girl. It was never possible to find out what exactly was the cause of death - suicide or murder.

Barbara's father's life was insured and her mother received a good amount of money. Taking her daughter with her, she moved to New York, buying a home there in a beautiful area.



Barbara

Barbara, when she grew up, became an amazingly beautiful girl. She was well aware of her external characteristics and understood that beauty would be an excellent help in life to achieve what she wanted. Barbara began to attend many parties and acquired useful acquaintances there.

Of course, such a bright girl could not help but be noticed by the employees of the modeling agency and offered her a job. Barbara began filming for Vogue, Harper's Bazaar and became one of the ten most beautiful girls in New York. A brilliant life, brilliant opportunities and prospects that served only as a screen for the true state of affairs.

Barbara had enormous mental problems. Many were sure that Barbara’s mother had schizophrenia, which her daughter inherited. Barbara tried to cope with her condition as best she could, regularly visited a psychiatrist and hid her illness as best she could, because secular society would turn its back on her, and her career, having barely begun, would also go to ruin. Barbara wanted to be in Hollywood, to become an actress, but what kind of acting is there in such a state.

Barbara began going to obediences, where she met Cornelia Baekeland. The two young girls quickly became friends and Cornelia introduced Barbara to her brother Brooks. The young people quickly fell in love with each other, and an extremely pleasant bonus turned out to be that the Baekeland family was “old money,” as they were called in the USA. This expression meant that for several generations the family was very, very rich.

Leo Baekeland, being the ancestor of Cornelia and Brooks, created Bakelite, a type of plastic. And in general, it was he who first used the word “plastic”. And the family received income from Leo’s patent for this very species, which is used everywhere.



Barbara and Brooks

Let's return to the lovers. Despite the fact that Brooks was delighted with the beauty of his girlfriend, her difficult character made itself felt and the guy decided to break up with Barbara. But she responded by saying that she was expecting a child. Brooks could not leave the pregnant girl and was forced to ask her to marry. Moreover, the wedding had to be arranged quickly so that the bride would not stand at the altar with a huge belly. The celebration went as it should, and almost the next day Barbara said that... surprise, surprise... she was actually not expecting any child. It's funny, but after such lies Brooks did not rush to file for divorce and stayed together. Surely, without pressure from relatives, the reputation of a respected and famous family would have suffered.

Brooks and Barbara began to build a life together, and the main thing in this life was parties. A huge apartment on the Upper East Side was very conducive to this. The Baekelands looked happy, prosperous and were a very beautiful couple. But very soon the young wife began to turn into rude, offensively sarcastic and unbalanced. According to rumors, at the parties there was not only alcohol, but also drugs. You can even believe these rumors: what is bohemia without prohibited substances? Brooks, in turn, was not a faithful husband and quickly began to cheat on Barbara. In general, there was no trace of happiness in this union. But, despite everything, the couple was able to conceive a child.

The boy was named Tony.



Barbara holding Tony

The Baekelands moved to Europe, where the head of the family began an affair with the daughter of an English diplomat. Everything would be fine, but the girl was only fifteen years old. Brooks was so crazy with love that he was ready to file for divorce and formalize his relationship with the teenager. Of course, Barbara could not allow this and attempted suicide. She was rescued, but her husband was so scared that he not only stayed with her, but also slowed down for a whilel search for true love.

A crowd of nannies took care of the boy Tony, and domestic staff provided everyday comfort. The Baekelands had no time to raise their son; parties, adultery and internal turmoil could not be missed.



Tony as a child

Tony grew up to be a very strange young man. After eighteen years, he left his father’s house to travel around Europe in search of himself. At the age of twenty, Tony began to live in Italy, where he indulged in all sorts of hard things - fun, drugs and a chaotic sex life. Quite quickly he realized that he was not interested in the opposite sex.

As a child, the boy lived for some time in a boarding school, where, as often happens in such institutions, he was sexually assaulted by an adult man. Brooks, by the way, suspected that his son was gay, but Barbara flatly refused to even listen to anything on this topic. When she found out that Tony had entered into a relationship with a young man, she was ready to break it off with rage. The mother immediately packed her things and rushed to Italy to teach her son wisdom. She brought him home and began the process of re-education.



The film "Wild Grace" was made based on this story.

At first, Barbara decided that Tony just needed to find the right girl and brought Sylvie, the beautiful daughter of her friends, into the house. Barbara settled her in the house, hoping that Tony was about to see Sylvie's beauty and they would begin an affair. Sylvie began an affair, not with Tony, but with Brooks. And he was very serious.

Barbara decided to take the well-worn path of attempting suicide, but Sylvie was also no fool and also swallowed pills. Brooks was a little stunned by all this, but still filed for divorce. As soon as he became free, he immediately married his Spanish beauty.

But what could Barbara do, left without a husband? That's right, re-educate the “wrong” son. She even began bringing prostitutes home, but Tony stubbornly refused to “re-educate.” And Barbara took a completely crazy step.

In the summer of 1969, Barbara and Tony went to Mallorca on vacation. At the villa they regularly drank together and, on one of these days, the mother decided to “cure” her son through her own efforts.

Moreover, she not only did not consider this act of incest something abnormal. Barbara told anyone who would listen that being intimate with her own son was therapy. Only for some reason Tony wasn’t “cured.” His life went downhill after that.

The young man asked his own father for help, but Brooks could not help him. Tony, after sex with his own mother, began to have uncontrollable outbursts of rage, he broke things, threw himself at the first thing that came to hand. Barbara remained calm and did not notice her son's behavior.



Tony Baekeland

A year later, mother and son returned to New York. Tony entered art college, where he painted talented but wildly frightening works. Bodies in pools of blood. He painted his own mother without a head, and snakes wriggled across her painted body. Both classmates and teachers understood that something was clearly wrong with Tony, but Barbara stubbornly ignored everything that was told to her and everything that she saw herself.

One night, Tony attacked Barbara and beat her with a wooden stick. When the woman told the psychiatrist about this, he directly told her that her son would kill her someday.

Tony's examination showed that he had "schizophrenia", but Brooks refused to pay for his son's therapy and he, along with his mother, simply had to leave for England.

At a dinner party to celebrate their arrival, Tony tried to strangle Barbara, which shocked the guests, but this was only the beginning. For several months after his arrival, he tried, if not to kill, then at least to cripple his beloved mother. He beat, cut, poked with sharp objects, in impotent anger. Visits to psychiatrists did not yield results.



Barbara

It was October 1972.

Tony entered the kitchen, took a knife and killed his mother with a blow to the chest. The police he called upon arrival found a young man next to Barbara's corpse - he had ordered food over the phone. Tony offered no resistance, only saying that he was under such a powerful influence of his mother that he was sure that she controlled his thoughts. He didn’t remember how he killed, he said that everything was like a fog. The New York psychiatrist was right when he predicted Barbara's death...

When Tony confessed, the investigators could not understand whether the killer was aware of his owns actions because he continued to talk about his mother as if she were alive.

The lawyer collected all the numerous evidence from psychiatrists and Tony Baekeland was declared insanity in court. The father immediately disowned his son and wanted nothing to do with him.



The film "Wild Grace" was made based on this story.

But his maternal grandmother, Nini Daly, was imbued with sympathy for her daughter’s killer. She sincerely loved him, connected all her connections and was able to achieve repatriation to the USA, where her granddaughters would be under her care. Brooks, shocked by this decision, said that Tony, as soon as he was released from the hospital, would immediately begin committing one murder after another. Nobody listened to Baekeland, but he was right.

A week after arriving in America, Tony attacked his grandmother, who had carefully pulled him out of a psychiatric hospital. Cause? Nini did not allow Tony to call a friend in England and he stabbed her eight times with a knife. Nini managed to survive simply by a miracle, and Tony complained to the police that his grandmother still could not die.

Tony Baekeland was sent to Rikers - this prison is famous for its bad reputation and the fact that violence is not stopped there in any way.

Tony was left alone with himself, with a broken psyche, without medical help. It is not surprising that on March 20, 1981, his body was found in his cell. Baekeland, 34, killed himself by suffocation by pulling a plastic bag over his head. The same one to whose origin Leo Baekeland was directly related.