Horrible what was done

and also horrible that society allowed it to happen by letting this boy fall between the cracks in a dismal, horrific existence.

Caged and doomed, boy leaves sad account of his life

"Why did no one miss him? Why didn't anyone seem to even notice he wasn't around?"

The body of a boy named Christian Choate, 13, had been found encased in cement and buried in a shallow grave in Lake County, Indiana. Police and prosecutors there alleged that he had been forced to live in a dog cage, and was kept naked except for a diaper. They alleged that his father, Riley Lowell Choate, 39, and his stepmother, Kimberly Leona Kubina, 45, had regularly beaten and kicked the boy, deprived him of food, and chained his hands to the top of the cage. They have been charged with murder, battery, neglect of a dependent and criminal confinement. They have pleaded not guilty; Riley Choate is scheduled to be back in court on Tuesday.

One of the most saddening aspects of the case is that Christian was killed more than two years before his body was found in May, yet during all that time, according to police investigators, there is no indication that anyone was looking for him.

He had been pulled out of school long ago, so there were no teachers who wondered where he might be. The state of Indiana did not have an investigation of his family open at the time of his death and disappearance; the state's child protective agency had no idea he was gone. According to police, his father had "punched him with full force several times in the front, side and back of his head" in April of 2009 because the boy was too ill to eat; when Christian, back in the cage, stopped breathing, police said, he was put into a garbage bag, covered with cement and hidden beneath the ground.

Incredibly, authorities have a collection of letters Christian wrote in captivity, letters he was assigned to write by his stepmother. And although the family was investigated many times--including once for reports of a child under 'house arrest', most were found to be insubstantiated. Christian's letters speak of a child waiting for someone to find him, wondering why he deserved what was done to him and internalising the abuse, wanting others to like him, and wanting to die to end it all because no one liked the way he acted. As can sometimes be found in abuse cases, Christian was singled out while other children in the home were free to play, a fact that is very apparent from his writings, and which only underscored his isolation.

Words fail me for what I think should be done to anyone who could treat a child this way.

Several years ago I did a bulletin board during October for child abuse awareness and was asked to change it because of some of the language I'd used being 'too strong'. I had stated that sometimes the monsters are in the home.

For this boy this was certainly the case. The people who did this were monsters, without any compassion or sense of humane treatment. I hope they are prosecuted to the extent possible. Ironically, no matter what the outcome of any legal proceedings, they will be treated more humanely than this boy.