We all have events in our pasts that are able to stir up such strong emotions inside that it’s almost as if it has happened all over again.
One of my such events is about an autistic girl I used to babysit.
Autism is a confusing developmental condition of the brain which even in 2007 can’t be fully understood. Wikipedia is a great resource for trying to sort through degrees of and behaviors.
The 3 year old girl I cared for, I’ll call her Hope, had severe autism. She was unable to communicate her needs, did not talk, refused to eat many foods, avoided all eye and physical contact and spent most of her days rocking back and forth on her hands and knees. On a good day with Hope, her therapists (she saw 5 every week) might get her to pick up a ball or picture book just to throw it back down and try to get away. Her therapists constantly changed due to the fact that there was never any progress. She did occasionally show signs of being happy about something by flapping her hands wildly and squealing but the very moment I would try to share it with her she would shy away.
Hope was living here in the US with the woman who had adopted her. Her 40 something year old “mother” was here from England and told me she had come here to adopt Hope from Russia because the US has the easiest screening process. I thought that was a little odd but as long as she is adopting a baby who would otherwise be neglected and abused then good for the baby. My first meeting was with the mother only. That’s pretty typical…fathers usually don’t get involved when choosing the daycare provider. It was only several weeks later that I found out that there is no father. What there was, was a creepy boyfriend who sometimes slept over. I say he was creepy because he was. I believe Hope felt the same way. When he would come to pick her up she would go upstairs as quickly as her bony legs would carry her. I had to be the “bad guy” and carry her down and hand her over to him.
On the last day I saw Hope she was dropped off at her usual time, 5:30 AM. She was almost always sleeping when she was dropped off and I would just carry her into her bed and see her when she woke up. She woke a little before 9 and I went up to get her. I combed her hair and pulled it back into a ponytail. And then I saw bruises. On the top half of her left ear was a bruise as dark as night. In the back it was deep red and swollen. On her right ear was the same, only not as dark. Next to her left eye was two red lines that ran the length of her forehead and temple. It looked like she had been slapped so hard that the blood vessels were broken. Below her right eye was slight bruising.
Hope is unable to answer questions. She is also unable to volunteer information. This left me wondering by myself what may have happened. It looked like her ears had been pulled VERY hard and she had been slapped and hit so hard she bruised. I have a friend who is an EMT and I had him look at her marks. He agreed. There was nothing else even remotely possible.
As a licensed child care provider I was required to report suspected abuse to DCFS and the local police…which I did.
The local police said it would have to be investigated at Hope’s home with her parents. I advised them that she was autistic and they would get no answers from her and clearly the parents would not admit to such a heinous act. I was told that was how it would be handled and I could do nothing about it.
DCFS, headed by crook and liar, Rod Blagojevich, employs nothing but idiots but I had to report my findings to them as well in the hopes that they would investigate. I was told that within 14 days they would send someone to the home to do an investigation. I again mentioned the extraordinary facts about this but I was told protocol would be followed as usual. I mentioned that Hope had seen a therapist the night before and surely she would have called in to report these marks. Nope, nothing filed.
I made a phone call to the therapist who had seen Hope the night before. She claimed that when she left the home at 9 PM Hope was unmarked and well.
I called Hope’s “mother” and informed her that she needed to come pick her up. I wasn’t going to have her show up late in the day and say the marks weren’t there when she dropped her off. When she arrived I told her the police had been called and they would be meeting them back at her house. She told me Hope had fallen off the bed. Of course she did – when you pulled her by her ears to the floor maybe!
So I said goodbye to this little girl whose birth mother had decided it was better for her to be raised by someone else not knowing that it would be a silent nightmare. As her “mother” was leaving with her she mentioned to me that they were going back to England in 2 weeks and this about to begin investigation would be over.
I called the police later that night to find out what had happened. They would not tell me anything except that they had been to the house and there wasn’t an arrest. No arrest! Did they switch Hope with a friend’s kid for a couple hours?? Because that is the only way an arrest would not have been made!
I started calling DCFS everyday to follow up. And every day I was told that the investigation had not started yet. I informed them that the “mother” had family in England (where she had come from less than one year ago) and told me they were going there in two weeks. The lazy, ignorant, uncaring man who was assigned to this case said he would make a note of that.
After the first week the man had stopped taking my calls. I left him messages twice a day every day. On the 12th day he called me back. He said the investigation might take another 14 days to begin. I explained by then that the family would be gone. He told me “Kids fall through the cracks”. I hung up on him. Here I had worked for a department that required so much of me in order to hold my license and now they were not doing the one thing that is required of them – PROTECT THE KIDS!
After 12 days of nothing happening, knowing that they would soon be leaving the country, I tried to contact local news teams, newspapers and even Oprah. Channel 7, ABC, had just run a segment on how DCFS had lost kids in the system so I figured they would be all over this. Channel 7 did contact me via email asking for more details but apparently they didn’t want to step on anymore toes because I never heard from them again.
I waited 15 days and then I called Hope’s “mother” at work. I was told she no longer worked there. A drive past their house had proven them to be gone. I made one last phone call to DCFS letting them know they had waited too long and it no longer mattered. And that I was turning in my license. No longer would I work for a department that I had lost all respect for.
I think about Hope often and I pray the abuse didn’t continue or escalate.
One of my such events is about an autistic girl I used to babysit.
Autism is a confusing developmental condition of the brain which even in 2007 can’t be fully understood. Wikipedia is a great resource for trying to sort through degrees of and behaviors.
The 3 year old girl I cared for, I’ll call her Hope, had severe autism. She was unable to communicate her needs, did not talk, refused to eat many foods, avoided all eye and physical contact and spent most of her days rocking back and forth on her hands and knees. On a good day with Hope, her therapists (she saw 5 every week) might get her to pick up a ball or picture book just to throw it back down and try to get away. Her therapists constantly changed due to the fact that there was never any progress. She did occasionally show signs of being happy about something by flapping her hands wildly and squealing but the very moment I would try to share it with her she would shy away.
Hope was living here in the US with the woman who had adopted her. Her 40 something year old “mother” was here from England and told me she had come here to adopt Hope from Russia because the US has the easiest screening process. I thought that was a little odd but as long as she is adopting a baby who would otherwise be neglected and abused then good for the baby. My first meeting was with the mother only. That’s pretty typical…fathers usually don’t get involved when choosing the daycare provider. It was only several weeks later that I found out that there is no father. What there was, was a creepy boyfriend who sometimes slept over. I say he was creepy because he was. I believe Hope felt the same way. When he would come to pick her up she would go upstairs as quickly as her bony legs would carry her. I had to be the “bad guy” and carry her down and hand her over to him.
On the last day I saw Hope she was dropped off at her usual time, 5:30 AM. She was almost always sleeping when she was dropped off and I would just carry her into her bed and see her when she woke up. She woke a little before 9 and I went up to get her. I combed her hair and pulled it back into a ponytail. And then I saw bruises. On the top half of her left ear was a bruise as dark as night. In the back it was deep red and swollen. On her right ear was the same, only not as dark. Next to her left eye was two red lines that ran the length of her forehead and temple. It looked like she had been slapped so hard that the blood vessels were broken. Below her right eye was slight bruising.
Hope is unable to answer questions. She is also unable to volunteer information. This left me wondering by myself what may have happened. It looked like her ears had been pulled VERY hard and she had been slapped and hit so hard she bruised. I have a friend who is an EMT and I had him look at her marks. He agreed. There was nothing else even remotely possible.
As a licensed child care provider I was required to report suspected abuse to DCFS and the local police…which I did.
The local police said it would have to be investigated at Hope’s home with her parents. I advised them that she was autistic and they would get no answers from her and clearly the parents would not admit to such a heinous act. I was told that was how it would be handled and I could do nothing about it.
DCFS, headed by crook and liar, Rod Blagojevich, employs nothing but idiots but I had to report my findings to them as well in the hopes that they would investigate. I was told that within 14 days they would send someone to the home to do an investigation. I again mentioned the extraordinary facts about this but I was told protocol would be followed as usual. I mentioned that Hope had seen a therapist the night before and surely she would have called in to report these marks. Nope, nothing filed.
I made a phone call to the therapist who had seen Hope the night before. She claimed that when she left the home at 9 PM Hope was unmarked and well.
I called Hope’s “mother” and informed her that she needed to come pick her up. I wasn’t going to have her show up late in the day and say the marks weren’t there when she dropped her off. When she arrived I told her the police had been called and they would be meeting them back at her house. She told me Hope had fallen off the bed. Of course she did – when you pulled her by her ears to the floor maybe!
So I said goodbye to this little girl whose birth mother had decided it was better for her to be raised by someone else not knowing that it would be a silent nightmare. As her “mother” was leaving with her she mentioned to me that they were going back to England in 2 weeks and this about to begin investigation would be over.
I called the police later that night to find out what had happened. They would not tell me anything except that they had been to the house and there wasn’t an arrest. No arrest! Did they switch Hope with a friend’s kid for a couple hours?? Because that is the only way an arrest would not have been made!
I started calling DCFS everyday to follow up. And every day I was told that the investigation had not started yet. I informed them that the “mother” had family in England (where she had come from less than one year ago) and told me they were going there in two weeks. The lazy, ignorant, uncaring man who was assigned to this case said he would make a note of that.
After the first week the man had stopped taking my calls. I left him messages twice a day every day. On the 12th day he called me back. He said the investigation might take another 14 days to begin. I explained by then that the family would be gone. He told me “Kids fall through the cracks”. I hung up on him. Here I had worked for a department that required so much of me in order to hold my license and now they were not doing the one thing that is required of them – PROTECT THE KIDS!
After 12 days of nothing happening, knowing that they would soon be leaving the country, I tried to contact local news teams, newspapers and even Oprah. Channel 7, ABC, had just run a segment on how DCFS had lost kids in the system so I figured they would be all over this. Channel 7 did contact me via email asking for more details but apparently they didn’t want to step on anymore toes because I never heard from them again.
I waited 15 days and then I called Hope’s “mother” at work. I was told she no longer worked there. A drive past their house had proven them to be gone. I made one last phone call to DCFS letting them know they had waited too long and it no longer mattered. And that I was turning in my license. No longer would I work for a department that I had lost all respect for.
I think about Hope often and I pray the abuse didn’t continue or escalate.
My story is not the only one that tells the tale of an autistic child abused by his/her parents, adopted parents or foster care parents…
As reported on Central Ohio's News Leader :: WBNS-10TV
Baker, 25, testified at Liz Carroll's trial that it was the foster mother's idea to bind the child up before the trip, as they had done before when running errands or going to another child's football practice. … David Carroll suggested burning the body, and Baker told him about an abandoned, outdoor chimney in a neighboring county.
He put the body in a box, and the two got three cans of gas and burned the body in the chimney in a rural area, she said. …”
Taken from The New York Times
Inside the apartment, police found Ulysses naked in the bathtub, his throat cut from the left side to the center, Kelly said.Beside the tub was a bucket of bloody water and in the kitchen were two large, bloody kitchen knives that had been partly wiped clean in what Kelly called an "attempt to clean up the crime scene."
The father, sources said, had custody of Ulysses for at least 10 years because the child's mother, who lives elsewhere, is addicted to crack. … The father, who is unemployed, has 10 arrests on his record, two for assault and eight that are sealed, police said…”
Those looking to adopt or provide foster care to a child should not only be required to go through a very thorough, borderline invasive, application but there needs to be a system put in place that continues to track these families. Don’t tell me that we don’t have enough money to provide continual care for these children because we continue to provide care for children in other countries. How about we spend those dollars here at home where children are being abused and killed?!
I can’t even begin to imagine what it does to a family when they believe their child’s school is a safe environment and the child suffers abuse at the hands of the teacher! A special education teacher in the local school is not sufficient! These families need facilities in place where the caregivers and educators have been schooled and are dedicated to providing a specific and proper surrounding for autistics so stories like these no longer are a reality…
The Sparks Tribune out of Sparks Nevada reported
”… Hubbard-Washington is accused of verbal abuse and physical force including hitting, pinching, scratching and grabbing five autistic students she taught from April 2006 to March 2007, according to a criminal complaint. … Hubbard-Washington was placed on paid administrative leave May. 4, Clark County school officials said.”
And on the other side of the country Orlando Sentinel reports this
The mother of an autistic teenager on Monday became the 11th parent to sue the Seminole County School Board over allegations that former teacher Kathleen Garrett physically and emotionally abused her child. … Garrett, 51, was convicted in state circuit court in January of abusing one of her students, pinning a 60-pound boy to the top of his desk and staying on top of him until his eyes bulged and his lips turned blue…”
And we have all heard the stories of people in nursing homes being abused…
Found on Newsday.com
“…A hidden camera captured the beating of the 50-year-old woman at PLUS Group Home Inc. on Newport Road in Uniondale. The footage showed the aides kicked the woman, hit her in the head with their hands, a wooden clothes hanger and a shoe, the police said.
The severity of the woman's autism leaves her unable to care for herself, speak or express emotions or pain, the police said. …”
Autism affects 1 in 150 children. Autism affects 1 in 150 families. 1 in 150!! That is alarming yet it is not getting the attention it needs. What’s even more alarming is the number of those children that are abused and even murdered, with the most sickening abuse being carried out by parents who clearly haven’t been given enough support, education or resources.
Unfortunately it is impossible to strive for a day when people learn tolerance and understanding for those with disorders. Our society is riddled with ignorant people willing to turn a blind eye towards subjects that should be brought into light. What we should be aiming towards is affordable care and available resources for those in need and zero tolerance for those who are committing these crimes!
I tried to write a blog packed with emotion on this subject but the more research I did I became aware that the best way to bring attention to this matter is writing “just the facts man”.
Joel Smith is an autistic adult who maintains This Way Of Life, a site of facts and resources. On his page, Murder of Autistics he notes the following:
“In Loving Memory...
This page is dedicated to those autistics who were killed because they were autistic, including:
Angelica Auriemma (Age 20, died 5 Dec. 2003)
Dale Bartolome (Age 27, died 29 July 2002)
Charles-Antoine Blais (Age 6, died Nov. 1996)
Eric Bland (Age 38, 2004)
Jeffrey Bogrett (Age 9, died 1 Dec. 1995)
Gabriel Britt (Age 6, died 3 March 2001)
Casey Collier (Age 17, died 21 Dec. 1993)
Maggie Caraballo (Age 38, died 20 Aug. 2003)
Jonathan Carey (Age 13, died February 2007)
Terrance Cottrell, Jr. (Age 8, died 22 Aug. 2003)
James Joseph Cummings, Jr. (Age 46, died 16 Nov. 1999)
Jason Dawes (Age 10, died Aug. 2003)
Christopher DeGroot (Age 19, died 19 May 2006)
Brahim Dukes (Age 18, died 29 Dec. 2001)
Marcus Fiesel (Age 3, died August 2006)
Lillian Leilani Gill (Age 4, died March 2002)
Matthew Goodman (Age 14, died 6 Feb. 2002)
Jim Helm (died 1998)
Stephanie Jobin (Age 13, died 17 June 1998)
Daniel Leubner (Age 13, died 4 Sept. 1999)
Katherine McCarron (Age 3, died 13 may 2006)
Patrick Markcrow (Age 36, died 29 March 2005)
Justin Malphus (Age 5, died 19 April 2000)
Charles Mancill (Age 24, died 13 Feb. 2002)
Sean Miles (Age 37, died 2 May 2006)
Abubakar Nadama (Age 5, died 23 Aug. 2005)
Mark Owens-Young-Rogan (Age 11, died 17 Sept. 2001)
Pierre Pasquiou (Age 10, died 28 Dec. 1998)
Tiffany Pinckney (Age 23, died 2 April 2005)
Michael Renner-Lewis (Age 15, died 25 Aug. 2003)
Nozomu Shinozaki (Age 22, died 25 Feb. 2003)
Craig Sorger (Age 12, died 15 Feb. 2003)
Ulysses Stable (Age 12, died 22 Nov. 2006)
Tanaka (Age 14, died 24 July 2002)
Matthew Vick (Age 23, died 25 May 2002)
Wayne Winter (Age 39, died 15 Jan. 2001)
Willie Wright (Age 15, died 4 March 2000)
When these lives were taken from the world, some of the world's beauty and wonder was taken with them. We have lost that beauty and wonder forever. “
Visit his site to read the sentences received (or not received) for these murders…it is sad and disgusting.
When researching statistics and facts about autism I found neurodiversity.com There too you can find story after story of murdered or abused autistics.
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