Starved 7-Year-Old Boy’s Mother Told School Not To Feed Him
More disturbing details have emerged in the case of a Mercer County, Pennsylvania boy who police said was starved and regularly beaten by his family.
According to investigators, the 7-year-old boy’s mother told school officials in Hempfield Township not to feed the boy breakfast. Police say the mother told teachers that her son had at a large breakfast at home and would “overeat if he was fed again.” The child only weighed 25 pounds.
[su_center_ad]According to WPXI, school officials contacted Children and Youth Services after the boy was found stealing food out of the garbage and hoarding food in his socks and shoes.
28-year-old Mary C. Rader, the boy’s mother, and the boy’s grandparents who lived with them, 58-year-old Dennis C. Beighley and 47-year-old Deana Beighley, are facing multiple charges in the case, including conspiracy to commit murder.
“He looked like a Holocaust victim,” Detective John J. Piatek said, who specializes in child abuse cases. “He had been beaten with a belt every time he tried to get food. He had three abscessed teeth and weighed 20 pounds when he was taken to Children’s Hospital. The starvation could have killed him. The abscessed teeth could have killed him.”
According to Piatek, their sole motive seems to have been that they disliked the child.
Police say the boy’s mother decided to homeschool the child last year and he was not allowed outside the house except to the back porch, where he would sometimes eat the bugs he caught.
The boy was given only small amounts of tuna and eggs, and suffered beatings with a belt — particularly when he sneaked food, usually peanut butter and bread, police said.
On June 6th, a neighbor called to report “what she said appeared to be a walking skeleton,” county welfare worker Kendra Manning said during a recent hearing.
WPXI reports, “District Judge Brian Arthur was so shocked by pictures presented in court and by medical reports of the boy’s condition after he was removed from the family’s Greenville home in June that the judge ordered the three defendants jailed and set bail at $100,000 each.”
Watch:
H/T: My BFF @ComgenKDT with thanks. [su_sky_ad]
Budda September 2nd, 2014 at 9:49 pm
What is wrong with these people?
Candide Thirtythree September 6th, 2014 at 4:55 pm
They had an unwanted child in their house and that is what monsters do to unwanted children. She will probably have more ‘accidents’ and probably do the same thing to them but the state will not giver her free sterilization.
Tommy6860 September 2nd, 2014 at 9:54 pm
:'(
abbyjo2001 September 2nd, 2014 at 9:57 pm
It’s hard to believe a human would do something like this, it’s heartbreaking.
Gindy51 September 3rd, 2014 at 6:50 am
We’re the only species who does, hon. Every other specieson the planet realizes that to maximize their genes chances at survival, their young must prosper and grow to adulthood. Humans, with that instinct blunted by our “brains”, well we often times could care less if our offspring make it (witness the idiotic global climate change deniers and fossil fuel industry executives.)
I hope this young guy recovers and lives a full and rich life and that his vile, monstrous relatives rot in jail.
abbyjo2001 September 3rd, 2014 at 9:39 am
I know Gindy51, its so sad. How did we humans get to be so uncaring? I’d like to grab that boy and hug him and then ask him what do you want to eat first? I hope his psyche can recover and he can grow to be a great young man.
KarenJ September 3rd, 2014 at 3:04 pm
It’s just SOME of us humans that do this. Just read some of the other comments. The psychopaths avoid stories like this. They’d rather echo Phil Robertson, or Sarah Palin.
atunionbob September 3rd, 2014 at 3:27 pm
Or Rush Limberger. He just plain stinks too you know.
MLKvalues September 3rd, 2014 at 4:17 pm
And you believe everything the DBC and BHO tells you.
Snarky Daemon O'Mockery September 9th, 2014 at 1:28 am
Hail Eris!
I doubt she does, but I really doubt she believes _anything_ FAUX News tells her, or Rush, Glenn, Pat, Joel, or any of the rest of the right-wing media brain trust.
Snarky
And you run and you run to catch up with the sun, but it’s sinking and racing around you to come up behind you again. The sun is the same in a relative way, but you’re older, shorter of breath and one day closer to death…
MLKvalues September 3rd, 2014 at 4:16 pm
Really? Really? You need to leave your liberal fantasy world. There are many species in the animal world that eat their young.
whatthe46 September 3rd, 2014 at 5:07 pm
true, but, they eat their young as a means for survival. its not done out of “hate”
M D Reese September 2nd, 2014 at 10:03 pm
It’s hard to type when you’re crying. I so hope he can recover from this and find a loving home.
Candide Thirtythree September 2nd, 2014 at 10:28 pm
I know what you mean, I would have loved to been able to have more than 2 kids but it wasn’t in the cards for me. My husband joked that I took in strays, stray cats, stray dogs and stray kids. I wish someone near there would have taken that child in but now days schools are so afraid that some ‘undeserving’ kid is gonna get an education on their dime that they make it almost impossible to get even kids who belong there into school much less a child living informally with neighbors.
Candide Thirtythree September 2nd, 2014 at 10:14 pm
And this is why birth control and abortions should be free and easy to get because people abuse unwanted children.
Forcing people to have children that they don’t want means that more and more of these cases will be in the news because for some reason if they carry the kid 9 months they will not give it away.
I suspect that it is because people they knew saw them pregnant and they don’t want to have to explain where the baby went and that is why they won’t give them up for adoption. They take it out on the kid because they were forced to have them.
People do not do this to children that they want and love.
Leeann Herring September 2nd, 2014 at 11:33 pm
That’s so true. Well said.
whatthe46 September 2nd, 2014 at 11:39 pm
i have to challenge you on some of your issues. 1st off, it doens’t always matter if a woman is given access to free abortions or birth control, there have been a number of women who will give birth just because they want the attention of others/sympathy, i.e., munchausen. and people may get angry with me for this statement, then there are young “girls” (white) who will not seek those services because they have grown up in a family of “christians” and belive, pregnancy w/o marriage is sooooooo sinful, you will go to hell or realize they will be disowned by their family. remember when wealthy families (white) would send their daughters off to “private school” for 9 months? but, most “girls” that murder their own babies are those from good homes. poor “minorities” and that includes “poor” white women, don’t murder their newborns on average as surburban white teens.
and then, there are just some disgusting, ignorant, pathetic, females. this discussion can go on and on and on and on. point is don’t make excuses. point is, people like (don’t get mad) Palin who, and others regardless of political party, will preach about family and get married first, always attempt to filp the script when it happens in their lives. for instance, her own daughter.
whatthe46 September 2nd, 2014 at 11:43 pm
oh and then there’s the postpartum depression. ooooh lets use that!
Snarky Daemon O'Mockery September 9th, 2014 at 1:33 am
Hail Eris!
PPD is a real thing, and causes women who have it to do things they wouldn’t ordinarily otherwise do. Not saying it’s the case, here, though. Seven years is a bit long for PPD.
Snarky
If I stood up in front of a million people and told them that your hubby was melting people down into lubrication for your 50 foot high gastropod identifier, would you be angry with me?
Snarky Daemon O'Mockery September 3rd, 2014 at 4:33 am
Hail Eris!
Yeah, it’s not about forcing people to have abortions, it’s the _choice_. Given the choice, women who don’t want to carry to term, won’t. Some people will, even when they don’t want the kid, yes, that’s true. Other people mutilate themselves in grotesque fashion, too, or take pleasure in all manner of sadistic acts. And? Stopping actual crazy people from doing crazy things is not the point of legalising abortion, because there is no possibility, no chance at all, of so stopping them. They’ll always find a way. No, the point is, a dead fetus is better than an actual murdered baby, wherever it’s possible to forestall craziness, before a mind can become deranged. These days, a dead fetus is a good thing, anyway, since we aren’t lacking for humans, and there are always going to be some humans who want kids of their own. We don’t need ten billion plus, ASAP. There isn’t any emergency requiring that many, and I don’t take advice on this sort of thing from ancient books of fairy tales (not Andersen, not Grimm, not Burton, not Aesop, and not the Bible).
Snarky
Un sot trouve toujours un plus sot qui l’admire.
atunionbob September 3rd, 2014 at 3:32 pm
It is not just lack of access to birth control and abortion. The Republican party is taking that away from any woman. They also deny lots of people who CAN provide a loving caring home to many many children in the foster adopt programs. Take Nebraska for example. They put a new ruling out a few years back that said, no person who is single and living with an other person of the same or opposite sex may be a foster parent or foster adopt parent. That eliminated over 45% of the existing foster homes in the state. I my self had just become licensed to be a adoptive parent, but that rule eliminated me as I had a male roommate. AND we both had passed the back ground checks, no criminal record, and no problems with the ability to care and pay for the child that would be adopted. The religious idiots are destroying America One state at a time, and people keep electing them over and over again…Ted Cruz is a good example as is Mitch McConnell and Paul Rand.
atunionbob September 3rd, 2014 at 3:34 pm
Oh and now I am too old to adopt…but I have had several run away children I cared for, educated, fed, clothed and all. I would do that all over again too.
whatthe46 September 3rd, 2014 at 5:34 pm
that’s just wrong. and you can bet that not one of these law makers are going to
step up to the plate and help these children.
oh, but wait aren’t they about families and children. oh but that’s befor they are born. after birth is when they don’t give a _____
that’s right. i know what their
disturbing reasons are when it comes to same sex couples, but what are their
reasons for single person?
Sydney September 2nd, 2014 at 10:14 pm
Unconscionable
This reminds me of David Pelzer who grew up with similar abuse. He wrote an account of his horror in the book “A Child Called It”.
MIAtheistGal September 3rd, 2014 at 6:40 am
A very hard book to read, but one that should be read.
tiredoftea September 2nd, 2014 at 10:37 pm
There are no words to describe the horror of this. I hope this boy recovers and finds a welcoming and loving family to help him back to mental and physical health.
jsutton September 2nd, 2014 at 11:19 pm
these people deserve to never see the light of day again
DetroitSam September 2nd, 2014 at 11:27 pm
How can one steal food if has been thrown in the garbage?
atunionbob September 3rd, 2014 at 3:24 pm
Some states have laws that consider any thing removed from a dumpster/garbage can to be stealing. Pennsylvania is one of ( I think) 37 states with such laws.
whatthe46 September 3rd, 2014 at 12:46 am
heartbreaking. he’s a baby. and it disturbs me when a child has done something wrong at this age, and he’s considered an adult, but when he’s harmed he’s a “child”. they are children they are babies they are kids they are innocent. PERIOD!
fahvel September 3rd, 2014 at 3:29 am
there are instances where capital punishment seems so very appropriate.
Snarky Daemon O'Mockery September 9th, 2014 at 1:40 am
Hail Eris!
*Forced sterilisation*. Not nearly as harsh as capital punishment, and paired with a permanent ineligibility to adopt kids or foster parent, it protects kids from them.
Snarky
I hear music!
Linda1961 September 3rd, 2014 at 6:22 am
My thoughts and prayers go out to the boy; may he find a loving home once he regains his health.
rg9rts September 3rd, 2014 at 7:46 am
They look well fed
Denise September 3rd, 2014 at 8:33 am
Eye for an eye is appropriate.
R.J. Carter September 3rd, 2014 at 9:27 am
Grandma didn’t seem to have a problem finding food.
Gloria Gainey September 3rd, 2014 at 7:54 pm
I So Agree.. They Look Like They Ate There 3 Meals A Day … Thank God Someone Reported it and that little boy doesnt have to go threw this anymore…. thank god
cwazycajun September 4th, 2014 at 10:47 am
thank god??? why would you thank your god iF he was so dammed powerful he might have done something about this..Im dammed glad there was someone out there that decided to call the cops instead of putting their head up their ass and ignore the poor kid cause they didn’t want to get involved ..that’s who Im thankin