Mother Arrested for Starving Her Child, Grandparents Charged as Well
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania – Police have arrested an adult mother and her parents in connection with a severe case of felony child abuse for starving a 7-year-old child to the point the lad weighed a paltry 20 pounds.
According to reports from the Associated Press, child welfare workers, responding to a complaint, found the child looking like a human skeleton in home in Greenville, in western Pennsylvania, last month.
“The most important medicine used to treat him at the hospital was food. He was within a month of having a major cardiac event that he probably would not have recovered from,” said Dr. Jennifer Wolford of UPMC Children’s Hospital Child Advocacy Center.
“It is impossible to me that this severe neglect and active abuse was not visible. He was being starved in his own home around others of normal weight,” she stated.
The accused are Mary C. Rader, the boy’s 28-year-old mother, Deana C. Beighley, the 47-year-old grandmother, and Dennis Beighley, the child’s 58-year-old grandfather. Mary Radar is a mother of four children split evenly between boys and girls.
The girls were well-cared for and were found in good health. They are ages 11 and 4 respectively. The other son is 9-years-old and was found to be underweight, but nothing compared to his 7-year-old brother.
It is unclear why the family targeted the child for such abuse. He was kept alive on small rations of eggs and tuna fish and allowed to supplement his diet from the protein he could get from insects on the back porch of the house. A physical beating with a belt awaited him for every attempt he made to sneak food from inside the house.
According to ABC News, he was also forced to take ice-cold showers as punishment — the only showers he was allowed — and had two abscessed teeth that had to be removed, police said.
His siblings told police that he was often beaten with the belt as he was driven to desperation out of hunger. The abuse and severe weight loss appears to have begun in August of last year shortly after Mrs. Radar withdrew her son from public school.
In addition, he was not allowed to bathe himself either. According to testimony from his siblings, he was occasionally washed in very cold water, but that to be done as a form of corporal punishment. At the time he was rescued and hospitalized, doctors believe he was only weeks away from suffering a heart attack that would have left him with permanent heart damage if he survived it at all. In the month he’s been hospitalized, he’s gained 20 pounds. Hospital staff say his number one medicine is chow. All three of the accused are out on bail and will appear in court on July 30.
Rader and the Beighleys were released on bond, with a preliminary hearing scheduled for July 30.
Meanwhile, the three other children that were in the home have been removed and are being cared for by Mercer County Child Protective Services.
Reference:
mom ,grandparents starved boy
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2698778/Mother-grandparents-7-year-old-boy-arrested-authorities-weighing-25-pounds-allegedly-starved-beaten-months.html
Police: Mom, Grandparents Nearly Starved Boy, 7
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/police-mom-grandparents-starved-boy-24632534
I will never, as long as I live, understand how anyone could so cruelly mistreat a helpless child, or animal. I just cannot fathom how anyone could be so twisted and evil to behave so abominably…..what is so broken inside of them that they would treat someone so small, vulnerable, and defenseless so terribly???
My husband and I felt bad all day Saurday because we were supposed to be taking our 6 year old grandson swimming and had to cancel at the last minute.Poor,poor boy.