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Kor37

Parent Of The Week

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This week's winner:

 

Tennessee Toddler Left in Car by Dad Dies

By BILL POOVEY

AP

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. (May 2) - A 1-year-old boy died after being left alone in a car for hours as temperatures soared into the 80s, and his father was charged with negligent homicide, police said.

 

Timothy Reid was found unresponsive by his father, Robert Reid, Tuesday afternoon, nearly seven hours after Reid had parked the car and went to work, officials said. Emergency workers pronounced the toddler dead at the scene and said the temperature in the car was 142 degrees.

 

Reid, 43, was charged with criminally negligent homicide and aggravated child abuse and neglect, Lt. Tim Carroll said Wednesday.

 

"The punishment is done regardless of what happens in court," Carroll said. "He is torn up. He reacted the way a parent should react who has lost a child."

 

Police said Reid took his three other children, ages 6, 10 and 12, to school Tuesday morning and had intended to take Timothy to day care before driving to work.

 

Investigators said Reid instead went to work and left the boy in the car seat.

 

Arrest records show the car was equipped with an interior motion detector that tripped the alarm several times on Tuesday. The father eventually turned off the alarm remotely from inside the office when he could not see anyone around the vehicle.

 

The boy was discovered when Reid went to his car to go pick up the children that afternoon.

 

The boy's mother had driven to the company she owns with her husband in a different vehicle. She was trying to resuscitate the child when emergency workers got there.

 

The outside temperature Tuesday reached 89 degrees, according to the National Weather Service.

 

Reid was released on $15,000 bail pending a May 23 court hearing; records show he did not yet have a lawyer. A woman who answered the phone at Unishippers, the business owned by the boy's parents, said no one would comment Wednesday.

 

 

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If I had a motion sensor alarm and didn't see anything I'd have gone down to see if the family pet accidentally got in the vehicle - why didn't he go down and check when the alarm kept going off?

 

You know - this has to be every parent's nightmare - I've read that since laws requiring children be put in the back seat there has been an increase in this type of tragedy. I wonder if this was an SUV with three rows of seats?

 

You could never forgive yourself over something like this and I doubt this guy's wife and other children will forgive him either.

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Another Winner:

 

Parents Accused of Locking Sons in Cage

By JOHN SEEWER

AP

TOLEDO, Ohio (May 3) - Two brothers were locked up in a dog cage when their father used drugs and when they were being punished, and one had to wear a shock collar, authorities said.

 

The parents appeared briefly in court Thursday on charges of child endangerment and making or selling drugs in front of the children, ages 10 and 5.

 

Jessica Botzko, 28, and John Westover, 37, were arrested a day earlier, after the boys ran away from home and were found on a neighbor's porch.

 

The boys told officers that they had been abused and locked in a dog cage at their home, said police Capt. Ray Carroll. They also said their father put them in the cage when he was using drugs, according to Carroll.

 

Court documents say the 10-year-old boy was repeatedly shocked at the family's home through a remote-controlled collar meant as a training device for animals.

 

Police searched the family's mobile home and found it filled with garbage, Carroll said.

 

The couple's hearings were continued because neither had a lawyer and the parents remained in jail.

 

Another Ohio couple, Michael and Sharen Gravelle of Norwalk, were convicted in February of child abuse and endangerment for keeping some of their 11 special-needs adopted children in wire and wood enclosures.

 

 

 

:assimilated:

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I would never use a shock collar on an animal, let alone a child. who the he ll thought that was a smart idea. They certainly weren't in the queue when brains was being handed out.

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This Week's Winner:

 

Mom Leaves Blind Boy on Side of Road

AP

LIVINGSTON, La. (May 18) - The mother and aunt of a legally blind 10-year-old boy were booked on cruelty charges after briefly leaving him on the side of a highway because he was misbehaving, a sheriff's spokesman said.

 

A driver reported seeing someone pick up a child from the side of Interstate 12 on Wednesday about 40 miles east of Baton Rouge and put him in a van. Authorities feared they were dealing with a kidnapping, said Jason Ard, the Livingston Parish sheriff's spokesman.

 

Investigators found the boy had actually been dropped off as punishment. The van traveled a short distance down the highway before the mother got out and retrieved him, Ard said. It was unclear exactly how long the child was out of the car but Ard said Friday it was probably only a few minutes.

 

Deputies booked the mother, Christine Cole, 32, and the aunt, Judy Chamberlain, 33, with second-degree cruelty to a child, Ard said.

 

The boy, whose name was not released, was placed in state custody.

 

 

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I guess they really meant "Do you want me to pull this car over?" :hug:

Edited by MrPsychic

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sorry but i dont see anything wrong with that

 

I do and don't at the same time. On one hand, kids need to learn discipline and respect. On the other hand, what if some freak decided to grab the kid to molest him? A normal kid would've run right away (probably), and with the mother not being far away really, that's that. But this kid was mostly blind, he wouldn't know to run until it's too late.

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....and since he was blind, what if he ran into traffic while being frightened?

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Well, he was legally blind, which usually means that he could see something. Usually, that's enough to see traffic. But still, that's well... insert bad word here.

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Interstate's usually have "no stopping except for emergencies" rules anyway - Interstate traffic is very fast and it is dangerous just to be stopping on the side of the road or trying to pull back into traffic.

 

I'm guessing a blind child would probably be skilled enough to hear the traffic and not run in that direction but that doesn't preclude someone accidently running off the road or stopping to kidnap him as someone mentioned earlier. Imagine how frightened he must have been. Imagine how any child would feel by being abandoned by a parent in a strange situation.

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Interstate's usually have "no stopping except for emergencies" rules anyway - Interstate traffic is very fast and it is dangerous just to be stopping on the side of the road or trying to pull back into traffic.

 

I'm guessing a blind child would probably be skilled enough to hear the traffic and not run in that direction but that doesn't preclude someone accidently running off the road or stopping to kidnap him as someone mentioned earlier. Imagine how frightened he must have been. Imagine how any child would feel by being abandoned by a parent in a strange situation.

 

Not to disagree with you, but what interstates have you been seeing? All the one's I've seen, if you see see half a mile ahead without any other cars in the break-down lane, you have enough road to pick up speed and get back in.

 

Especially the way my mother-in-law drives. Geezum crow, you do NOT want to be driving with her!

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I thought it was obvious that I currently do most of my driving Florida - although I have driven across most of the country. And they do have no stopping except for emergency signs on Interstate access ramps.

 

And I am talking specifically about the Interstate system - not highways. If your main Interstate driving is in highly populated areas then different standards may apply - speed limits are usually lower and states laws can vary.

 

http://www.interstate-guide.com/interstate.html

 

http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/interstate/faq.htm#question34

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Kor, I hope you don't mind me posting in your thread but I thought this beloned here.

 

BOSTON, Massachusetts (AP) -- A man tried to hire a hit man to kill his family, including his 7-year-old daughter, even requesting that she be shot in the chest and not the head so there could be an open casket at her funeral, authorities say.

cnn

 

The rest of the article goes on to say the hitman he hired felt guilty about killing a child and turned the guy in. Poor little girl, at least she want have to see her sorry piece of crap father (hopefully he'll spend a long time in prison) but to know your father paid someone to kill you - man - how sad.

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Kor, I hope you don't mind me posting in your thread but I thought this beloned here.

 

I just started the thread. Feel free to post anything you want on it.. :hug:

 

That is a horrific story. A father actually wanting to pay someone to kill his 7 year old daughter! Thank God that the hitman actually had some sort of a conscience and backed out. If there ever was a case to justify the death penalty, this would be it. This poor little girl probably has years of therapy ahead of her.

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This Week's Winner:

 

Internet-Obsessed Couple Let Kids Starve

AP

Posted: 2007-07-16 07:22:19

Filed Under: Crime News

RENO, Nev. (July 15) - A couple who authorities say were so obsessed with the Internet and video games that they left their babies starving and suffering other health problems have pleaded guilty to child neglect.

 

The children of Michael and Iana Straw, a boy age 22 months and a girl age 11 months, were severely malnourished and near death last month when doctors saw them after social workers took them to a hospital, authorities said. Both children are doing well and gaining weight in foster care, prosecutor Kelli Ann Viloria told the Reno Gazette-Journal.

 

Michael Straw, 25, and Iana Straw, 23, pleaded guilty Friday to two counts each of child neglect. Each faces a maximum 12-year prison sentence.

 

Viloria said the Reno couple were too distracted by online video games, mainly the fantasy role-playing "Dungeons & Dragons" series, to give their children proper care.

 

"They had food; they just chose not to give it to their kids because they were too busy playing video games," Viloria told the Reno Gazette-Journal.

 

Police said hospital staff had to shave the head of the girl because her hair was matted with cat urine. The 10-pound girl also had a mouth infection, dry skin and severe dehydration.

 

Her brother had to be treated for starvation and a genital infection. His lack of muscle development caused him difficulty in walking, investigators said.

 

The Straws have been given public defenders. Jeremy Bosler, head of the county public defender's office, declined to comment to The Associated Press on Saturday.

 

Michael Straw is an unemployed cashier, and his wife worked for a temporary staffing agency doing warehouse work, according to court records. He received a $50,000 inheritance that he spent on computer equipment and a large plasma television, authorities said.

 

While child abuse because of drug addiction is common, abuse rooted in video game addiction is rare, Viloria said.

 

Last month, experts at an American Medical Association meeting backed away from a proposal to designate video game addiction as a mental disorder, saying it had to be studied further. Some said the issue is like alcoholism, while others said there was no concrete evidence it's a psychological disease.

 

Patrick Killen, spokesman for Nevada Child Abuse Prevention, said video game addiction's correlation to child abuse is "a new spin on an old problem."

 

"As we become more technologically advanced, there's more distractions," Killen said. "It's easy for someone to get addicted to something and neglect their children. Whether it's video games or meth, it's a serious issue, and (we) need to become more aware of it."

 

 

 

These two should never be allowed to have any more children. They should both be spayed..... :biggrin:

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Pair With Horse, 7 Dogs in Home Arrested

AP

Posted: 2007-07-17 23:09:55

MODESTO, Calif. (AP) - Authorities removed a miniature horse and seven dogs from a home strewn with feces and rotting produce and charged the owners with endangering their 12-year-old child, officials said Tuesday.

 

Joe Silva and Nichole Surkala's house was so badly infested with flies that Surkala's young son had to sleep in a tent to escape them, said Animal Control Officer Jennifer Sol, who went to the residence investigating a neighbor's complaint Monday.

 

"There was nothing in my career that could have prepared me for what I came into," Sol said. "There were flies throughout. The (floor) had straw all over it. There were feces all over the kitchen. It was not pretty."

 

The child told her he slept in the tent inside his bedroom "because it was clean," Sol said. Social workers took the boy from the house and put him in protective custody, she said.

 

Surkala, 37, the boy's mother, and Silva, 30, his stepfather, were arrested on felony child endangerment charges. Surkala posted $25,000 bail later Monday, while Silva remained in jail Tuesday. A jail clerk didn't have any information about defense lawyers.

 

The couple rented out the miniature horse for children's parties, and the produce that littered the dwelling was used to feed the animal, Sgt. Ed Steele said.

 

"The animals were defecating all over the house," he said. "They were living in it. You couldn't walk anywhere without stepping on the stuff."

 

Horses are not allowed to be kept within Modesto city limits, Sol noted.

 

The horse appeared to be in good condition, but the dogs looked in need of attention, she said.

 

 

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Couple Locked Up Boy During Packers Game

AP

Posted: 2007-07-23 22:02:18

MILWAUKEE (AP) - A couple who admitted locking a 7-year-old boy in his room with a bucket for a toilet while they watched Packers games at a casino received jail sentences Monday. Circuit Judge Jeffrey Wagner called the couple's actions "abhorrent" and ordered them to undergo psychological screening.

 

"What both of you did certainly shocks the conscience of the community," Wagner said.

 

Scott Scherer, 39, and Melanie Hardrath, 30, admitted locking Hardrath's son in his room with a loaf of bread, peanut butter and jelly, and a bucket that he would have to clean when they returned.

 

They had enough money to hire a baby sitter, said Assistant District Attorney Chris Liege, who showed the judge photographs of the couple's extensive collection of Packers memorabilia.

 

Wagner scolded Hardrath and Scherer, a former youth counselor, for not thinking about what would happen if the boy got sick or the house caught fire while they were at the casino.

 

He sentenced Hardrath to seven months in a county jail and Scherer to nine months. Both will serve four years of probation, with a stayed sentence of two years in prison and more extended supervision.

 

The couple also can't have contact with each other in the presence of the boy, now 8. He is staying with relatives.

 

The couple's defense attorney, Richard Johnson, said he couldn't explain their behavior.

 

"What do you do?" he asked the judge. "Maybe this coming football season, lock them in a room with a bucket and make them watch Bears games."

 

 

If it was a Ravens game............maybe. Just kidding. These two are idiots and got what they deserved.

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Neither of those fools should be allowed to have custody of another child ever again. Those two sicken me. And the boy's mother should shot for allowing this to happen in the first place! :)

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No Money, No Marker: Headstone Removed

AP

Posted: 2007-07-31 13:45:22

SPRINGVILLE, Utah (AP) - The cemetery headstone for a teenager who died in a car wreck was repossessed after a $750 bill went unpaid.

 

"That's just business," said Linda Anderson of Memorial Art Monument. "If we give every stone to everybody, we'd be out of business. They'd repossess your car if you didn't make payments."

 

Brady Conger, 17, and two friends died when their car smashed into a sport utility vehicle a year ago Thursday.

 

Memorial Art said bills sent to one address were returned, and the business couldn't reach Brady's mother, who apparently had agreed last year to pay the balance. "The end result was that there was absolutely no one who I could talk to about this," owner Mike Anderson said.

 

Brady's classmates raised money to pay the bill, and the headstone will be installed again this week.

 

 

Nice parents this poor kid had. So nice to be remembered by your loved ones. Thank goodness for his classmates!

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Parents Accused of Encouraging Fight

AP

Posted: 2007-08-22 17:59:21

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) - A mother and father are facing charges they encouraged their 13-year-old daughter to fight another girl. Debra Sue Grubb, 33, is charged in Kanawha County Magistrate Court with misdemeanor battery after allegedly forcing her daughter Gabrielle to fight 14-year-old Megan Willis near the Grubbs' home on Aug. 15, Trooper J.M. Comer said Wednesday.

 

At one point, Grubb allegedly grabbed her daughter by the arm and used her daughter's body as a weapon to knock Megan to the ground.

 

Thomas Leon Grubb, 35, is charged with misdemeanor assault. Comer said Grubb is accused of threatening to harm two boys who were with Megan if they tried to break up the fight.

 

"It turned into a mess," Comer said. "The two parents allowed this to happen when it should have been handled by the parents."

 

Megan suffered cuts to her mouth and foot. Gabrielle was not injured.

 

Comer said the two girls had been clashing with each other for some time over "just kid things. You know, one is a cheerleader, one is not ... childish stuff that should have ended long before this."

 

Unbelievable....but then again.....its West Virginia!

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Mom Helps Cheerleaders Grab Boys' Beer

AP

Posted: 2007-10-24 16:53:12

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) - A woman has been charged with letting her 15-year-old daughter lean out of a school van on a highway to get beer from an SUV full of boys, authorities said Wednesday.

 

Terry Kisling, 47, was driving a van of Norris High School cheerleaders to a football game in Nebraska City earlier this month when a group of boys pulled up next to them, principal John Skretta said.

 

One of the girls apparently signaled to the boys and asked for a beer, and Kisling inched the van closer to the SUV, letting her daughter lean out to grab the can, Skretta said.

 

"To say that we were shocked and taken aback would be an understatement," said Skretta, who said he learned of the incident last week and immediately began investigating with Lancaster County authorities. "It's almost unfathomable."

 

The vehicles didn't touch and nobody was hurt, and the beer was passed around the van for several girls to drink, Skretta said.

 

Kisling was charged with procuring alcohol for minors, contributing to the delinquency of minors and reckless driving, said Chief Deputy Mike Holland of the Otoe County sheriff's department. Kisling is due in court Nov. 26.

 

The case was transferred once school and Lancaster County officials determined that the incident happened in Otoe County.

 

Kisling, one of many parents who volunteer to drive students to school activities in district-owned vans, will not be allowed to drive students for the school again, Skretta said.

 

A woman responding to a message left by The Associated Press at a telephone number listed for Kisling said Wednesday that the listing was wrong.

 

The girls were disciplined by the school and would likely not face additional charges, Skretta said. He would not say how the school punished the students.

 

Skretta and Holland would not identify the students involved, but Kisling's daughter, 15-year-old Marie Kisling, was listed Wednesday afternoon on the school's Web site as a varsity cheerleader.

 

Holland said the road Kisling drove on, Nebraska Highway 2, has two lanes in each direction separated by a grass median, with a speed limit of 65 mph. The schools are about 50 miles apart in southeast Nebraska.

 

Norris School District Cheerleading: http://www.norris160.org/cheerleaders/

 

 

My Mom NEVER helped me get beer!

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My dad let me get drunk before a World History final but that was about it.

 

It wasn't that big a deal. This was my last High School final ever and I had scored 100% correct on my three previous tests in that class. I only needed 2 correct answers out of 100 questions to get an A for the class and the teacher never gave A+s. I showed up a half hour late with beer on my breath, took the questions and the scantron, marked my 2 correct answers, turned in the form, shook the teachers hand, and I was done with High School.

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