This sickens me

2 toddlers found tied, chained in backyard, Texas deputies say

A 2-year-old boy was "chained to the ground as if he was a dog," he said. "There was no slack in the chain. His pants were down. You could tell he'd been here for a while. And then a short distance away, a 3-year-old girl who was tied to a door with a dog leash who was just exhausted."

The deputies moved quickly to release the two youngsters, but their work was not finished. Inside the house, they discovered six children ranging in age from 10 months to 13 years, the release said. There were no adults on site to care for them.

"To describe this as disturbing is an understatement," Keith said. "It makes you wonder what somebody's thinking. How could they do this?"

Early Friday morning, the parents of the six children who were inside returned to the house, the sheriff's office said.

The mother, Porucha Phillips, 34 was believed to be responsible for caring for the two toddlers, authorities said. She was charged with injury to a child by omission with serious bodily injury and Injury to a child by omission with bodily injury and is being held in the Bexar County Jail.

Deputies haven't said they're searching for the parents of the toddlers found in the backyard.

Child Protective Services was called in. The toddlers were taken to the Children's Hospital of San Antonio and are recovering, though the girl is in intensive care, Keith said.

CPS said one of them has a fractured right arm and wrist and the other has superficial injuries including abrasions and scarring, CNN affiliate KSAT reported. Six children have been cleared for foster care.

Oh, I did want to link to this very interesting study

Bullying does more long-term mental health harm than abuse, study says

The long-term effects of being bullied by other kids are worse than being abused by an adult, new research shows.

Among a large group of children in England, those who were bullied were 60% more likely to have mental health problems as adults than were those who suffered physical, emotional or sexual abuse. And among a large group of children in the United States, the risk of mental health problems was nearly four times greater for victims of bullying than for victims of child abuse.

The study itself, published in the journal Lancet Psychiatry, is open access and is freely available on their website (PDF: Lereya ST, Copeland WE, Wolke D. Adult mental health consequences of peer bullying and maltreatment in childhood: two cohorts in two countries. The Lancet Psychiatry. Published online April 28, 2015.)

This saddens me

Yale Study: 12 Percent of US Children Abused

A university research group arrived at the cumulative estimate of mistreated American children by examining the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System Child File, which includes data on every child in the country with a confirmed report of maltreatment.

Case reports accumulated between 2004 and 2011 showed over 5.6 million children had experienced maltreatment during that specific seven-year span.

"Confirmed child maltreatment is dramatically underestimated in this country. Our findings show that it is far more prevalent than the 1 in 100 that is currently reported," Christopher Wildeman, an associate professor of sociology at Yale, a faculty fellow at the Institution for Social and Policy Studies and the study's lead author, said in a news release.

It's actually 12.5% overall for 2011 rates according to the study. When broken up by ethnicity, they found black children experienced maltreatment at a rate of 20.9%, American Indians at 14.5%, Latinos 13%, white children at 10.7% all far ahead of Asian/Pacific Islanders, which was only 3.8%. Girls are more likely to be maltreated (13% vs. boys at 12%). They also found the risk for maltreatment is higher in the first years of life. The study was published in today's (June 2nd) issue of JAMA Pediatrics [Subscription only, but you can view the abstract]. Here's the citation:

Wildeman C, Emanuel N, Leventhal JM, Putnam-Hornstein E, Waldfogel J, Lee H. The Prevalence of Confirmed Maltreatment Among US Children, 2004 to 2011. JAMA Pediatr. Published online June 02, 2014. doi:10.1001/jamapediatrics.2014.410.

I just don't get it...

Washington couple guilty in death of adopted daughter Hana Williams

The starving girl died naked, face down in the mud in the backyard of her Sedro-Wooley, Wash., home just three years after Larry and Carri Williams adopted her from Ethiopia. Skagit County jurors convicted the husband and wife of manslaughter.

Toddler Weighed 11 Pounds When She Died

Around 1:45 a.m. Monday police were called to Einstein Hospital since the child appeared malnourished, She weighed only 11 pounds at the time of her death, which is less than half the weight of the average 3-year-old.

The girl "had not seen a doctor in over a year, even with all the severe disabilities," said Clark.

Investigators say that the twin girl had a chronic disorder and was blind in one eye.

A homicide captain says Rivera fled after leaving four other children with a relative Monday afternoon.

The other Rivera children -- ages 9, 8 and 7, along with Nathalyz's 3-year-old twin -- were being checked at a hospital before being placed with the Department of Human Services.

Later on Monday, homicide and crime scene investigators entered the home belonging to Rivera and Ramirez while wearing protective suits and Hazmat masks. Investigators say piles of trash and insects, including fleas, covered the home.

If you can't give a child a loving and nurturing childhood, then do not have them. Certainly don't go to the lengths of the first couple and go halfway around the world to adopt a child only to starve and torture it to death. I will never understand how anyone could treat a child this way. It's times like this I really have to remind myself that there are good people in the world. I saw a graphic on Facebook and shared it yesterday that said something to the effect of 'Scooby Doo taught us that the real monsters are humans'. As much as I would like to have faith that there are more people who are loving and good, it seems to me there are so many selfish, horrid people in the world. I hope both of these couples get the justice they deserve. I only wish their children had had a chance for life.

These sorts of cases make me sad, and sick

YKWIA told me about this one...

Stanford man accused of shaking 6-week-old infant: Baby was in critical condition Friday with hemorrhages in skull, eye

"After confessing to shaking the 6-week-old victim, the subject was arrested and charged with assault 1st-degree," the arrest citation, dated Aug. 24, reads. "The victim is currently at UK medical center in critical condition with four broken ribs, subdural hemorrhages in the skull and both eyes have hemorrhages. If the child lives, it will probably have some degree of brain damage."

And then I saw this one tonight...

Mother Charged After Infant Daughter Found Dead In Laurel County

Deputies conducted an investigation, and determined that the baby had been left with the mother's boyfriend's brother early on Saturday. The mother and her boyfriend told the boyfriend's brother that her other child had been critically hurt in a motorcycle accident and was in the hospital in Tennessee, and they needed him to watch the baby.

It was determined that the child had not been hurt, and that the mother and boyfriend had in fact been partying for 2 days. The boyfriend's brother had no experience in caring for a newborn infant baby.

Deputies located the mother and her boyfriend later in the night driving in the vicinity. The boyfriend ,Johnathon L Haynes, 32, was arrested and charged with DUI, and several other traffic offenses. Also taken into custody was the mother of the baby, Rachel E. Kilburn, 29, of Cutshin, Ky.

I find it inconceivable that anyone would treat a tiny baby this way, and it's sad that so often those who make horrible parents have no trouble conceiving, while those who want a child desperately cannot. And it takes a sick individual to shake a child near to death. Oh, it just sickens me. And none of these adults were young kids themselves, but rather in their late 20s to early 30s. Who parties for two days at that age, especially with small children???

As someone who grew up feeling worthless

and who has spent most of her adult life trying to recover or even discover a sense of self, I found this not surprising, but important to note:

Belittling kids as harmful as beating, study finds

It may be the most common kind of child abuse — and the most challenging to deal with. But psychological abuse, or emotional abuse, rarely gets the kind of attention that sexual or physical abuse receives.

That's the message of a trio of pediatricians, who write this week in the journal Pediatrics with a clarion call to other family doctors and child specialists: stay alert to the signs of psychological maltreatment. Its effects can be every bit as devastating as those of other abuse.

Psychological maltreatment can include terrorizing, belittling or neglecting a child, the pediatrician authors say.

"We are talking about extremes and the likelihood of harm, or risk of harm, resulting from the kinds of behavior that make a child feel worthless, unloved or unwanted," Harriet MacMillan, one of the three pediatrician authors, told reporters.

An interesting line of investigation

I spent much of my childhood battling strep infections. I don't know if my OCD is related to this, but the idea that it could be is pretty intriguing. (I wasn't diagnosed as a child, though I had some symptoms then. I might check with my mom and see what she remembers.)

Childhood disorder prompts study of infection link to mental illness

Brody Kennedy was a typical sixth-grader who loved to hang out with friends in Castaic and play video games. A strep-throat infection in October caused him to miss a couple of days of school, but he was eager to rejoin his classmates, recalls his mother, Tracy.

Then, a week after Brody became ill, he awoke one morning to find his world was no longer safe. Paranoid about germs and obsessed with cleanliness, he refused to touch things and showered several times a day. His fear prevented him from attending school, and he insisted on wearing nothing but a sheet or demanding that his mother microwave his clothes or heat them in the dryer before dressing.

So began a horrific battle with a sudden-onset mental illness that was diagnosed as pediatric autoimmune neuropsychiatric disorder associated with streptococcus, or PANDAS. The puzzling name describes children who have obsessive-compulsive disorder that occurs suddenly — and often dramatically — within days or weeks of a simple infection, such as strep throat.

Here are a couple of other interesting articles about causes of abnormal psychophysiology:

Scans Show Brain Damage in Abused Teens

Adolescents reporting a history of abuse -- even nonphysical forms such as emotional neglect -- had deficits in gray-matter brain volume in numerous regions compared with other teens, researchers said.

Among 42 teens without psychiatric diagnoses, scores on the self-reported Childhood Trauma Questionnaire were inversely correlated with gray-matter volume in brain regions including the prefrontal cortex, striatum, amygdala, and cerebellum, as well as cortical regions associated with sensory function, according to Hilary P. Blumberg, MD, of Yale University, and colleagues.

Moreover, the specific patterns of gray-matter deficit measured via high resolution MRI varied according to the type of abuse participants reported, the researchers indicated in the December issue of Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine.

ADHD - Four Genes Linked To The Disorder

Four gene variants, all members of the glutamate receptor gene family, appear to be involved in vital brain signaling pathways in a sub-set of children with ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder), researchers from the Center for Applied Genomics at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia reported in the journal Nature Genetics.

Senseless

Kentucky's child protection system under scrutiny after girl's murder

When Kimberly Dye was trying to adopt her great-niece in 2006, she said her two sons were excited about a little sister joining the family, according to state documents.

Garrett Dye, then 12, was asked to write what he would tell friends about his new sister, Amy, who was 5, and what he hoped she would be like.

"I will tell them that she is the best sister ever," he wrote. "I would like her to be funny and happy wherever she goes."

Not quite five years later, on a bitter-cold evening in February, Garrett beat Amy, 9, to death in the gravel driveway of their Todd County home with a metal jack handle, then dragged her body about 100 yards behind the house and hid it in a thicket.

This kid didn't stand a chance. Her family, the system, all failed her. Such a shame. I don't understand why sibling-on-sibling abuse is not taken more seriously.

I don't know why I thought to listen to this today, but it makes me cry every time I hear or see it

How horrible a life to lead, abandoned by a mother and abused by the ones who should have cared for her

Four arrested over death of Phoenix girl locked inside box as punishment, say cops

Police said Thursday that Ame Deal had been abused for a long time, and had been locked in a chest as punishment, reports CBS affiliate KPHO.

Authorities say before being locked in, the girl was forced to run and do other exercises in the backyard, despite nearly triple-digit heat.

Police investigators said the girl apparently had been put in the box at least five times in recent months for misbehaving, and had been beaten with a wooden paddle, forced to swallow hot sauce and to eat dog feces.

Police said the girl slept on the floor of a stall shower in the home with no blanket or pillow as a disciplinary measure for bed wetting.

Relatives charged in murder of 10-year-old found locked in box

When first questioned, the family members told police that Deal had climbed into the box and suffocated while playing hide-and-seek, police said.

Kansas woman says she found out about death of 10-year-old daughter in Phoenix via online

A Kansas woman who found out about the death of her 10-year-old daughter in Phoenix by reading about it online said she hasn't stopped crying since.

Shirley Deal fled from what she described as an abusive household several years ago. The child she left behind perished in the same household.

I am horrified that anyone would treat a child this way. I also do not have fond thoughts of a mother who leaves her child with people she believes to be abusive, the family of an ex-husband she says she is not even sure is the father of the child. And the child's supposed father was there, and although he has not been charged, you have to wonder if he simply did not know that four people were abusing his daughter, or if he knew and did nothing.

The very people who should have cared for and loved that girl failed her at best and allegedly murdered her at worst. How terrible that she was surrounded by these types of people. I am also interested if there were any suspicions of abuse that were reported to the authorities, and if they, too, failed this child.

So sad. Oh, and the offence for which she was locked in the box? She apparently stole a Popsicle from the freezer. For that she suffocated and died. I hope these people get exactly what they deserve.

What do you do if you

1) have a background in canon law, 2) know how and where the church keeps records, 3) know where church money comes from and where it goes, 4) speak Italian and Latin, and 5) are tired of hearing your parishoners confess that they should have known better, they should have spotted abuse by priests, beating themselves up for perceived sins when the abusers are getting away time and time again?

You leave the priesthood and become an expert consultant in civil and criminal cases against those protecting the molesters.

Onetime priest crusades for abuse victims suing Catholic Church

Via @almightygod on Twitter, who tweeted 'Here's a priest actually doing my work'.

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.

Why do we try to change people's inner natures?

This is a highly disturbing article of what happened to a little boy who was punished for being himself, with the blessing of psychologists with their own agenda, and who later touted him as a successful case while making a career of proving homosexuality could be prevented. Read all the way through to the end, and you'll be disgusted with this whole situation, but particularly with a certain researcher. We'll never know if Kirk Murphy was gay, or just perceived as different as a child. But he was obviously a troubled man, and the beatings for effeminate behaviour, while they cannot be proved as the reason, surely didn't help. That they were done in the name of science makes it so much worse.

Therapy to change 'feminine' boy created a troubled man, family says

Kirk Andrew Murphy seemed to have everything to live for.

He put himself through school. He had a successful 8-year career in the Air Force. After the service, he landed a high profile position with an American finance company in India.

But in 2003 at age 38, Kirk Murphy took his own life.

A co-worker found him hanging from the fan of his apartment in New Delhi. His family has struggled for years to understand what happened.

"I used to spend so much time thinking, why would he kill himself at the age of 38? It doesn't make any sense to me," said Kirk's sister, Maris Murphy. "What I now think is I don't know how he made it that long."

Did you see this? Unbelievable

Child found in oven died of heat injuries: 3-year-old boy's mother charged with murder, held on a $5 million bond
The boy apparently had a head injury. A pathologist is trying to discover if he were conscious when placed in the electric oven. The little girl who was found in the home has been placed with protective services. But the woman's twin sister says, 'She was a great parent, a good person. We don't know what's wrong. We don't know what happened. Do not sit there and call her a bad mom cause that's not what she is.'

Mental illness, maybe? Substance abuse? I don't know. But I do know one thing--something was definitely wrong in that household, something seriously out of kilter, and a boy is dead because of it.

I promise I won't make this a music channel

but I was looking around on YouTube and discovered that I was gravitating to certain videos, all of which I should have posted these during April, which is National Child Abuse Prevention Month:





There's also Genesis' 'No Son of Mine', which can't be embedded. I know I've posted them before, but not together. But although the style of music is very different, both videos deal with child abuse. I don't know why I seemed to connect to them tonight, but I did.

A life stolen, and finally, justice

April is Child Abuse Awareness Month. Here's a story to make us pause...

Decades after shaking baby, dad jailed again: Case centers on 19-year-old who died from trauma suffered during infancy

What could Christina have become? And I feel so sorry for the loss her adoptive mother must feel, after caring for a child no one else wanted for so long, one that never learned to walk, talk, or sit by herself, who beat the odds and lived 19 years when all the experts thought she would die soon after being injured severely by her own father.

Mike Wells was 19 when he shook his 2-month-old daughter and covered her mouth to stop her from crying. He and Tina Wells were convicted of aggravated child abuse in 1989, and each served less than a year in prison.

They went on with their lives, having several more children together. They raised their growing family in weathered mobile homes in rural Pasco County northwest of Tampa, and then in central Georgia where Mike Wells worked for awhile at a used-tire shop. Neither got in serious trouble again with the law.

And that might have been the end of it — a forever-sorry father having served his time and having to live with what he'd done to his child.

Lives take a turn

But when Christina died on March 15, 2006, at age 19, a medical examiner ruled the case a homicide: The brain injury her father inflicted almost two decades earlier had caused her death.

The same prosecutor who'd sent Mike Wells away in 1989 came after him again, this time getting a grand jury indictment charging him with murdering his daughter.

Wells pleaded no contest to second-degree murder and was sentenced to 15 years as part of an agreement with the prosecutors that allows him no appeals. Before his daughter died, he was able to visit her and see how severely he hurt her.

Please...no matter how angry you may be at a child, think of Christina and the terrible price that she paid for a young father's impatience. And kudos to Maureen Welch and her late husband for giving Christina a loving home, who patiently cared for her, who treated her lovingly and gave her a life beyond what she might have had in an institution.

I never had a child. I don't know what kind of parent I would be, but I never thought I'd be good enough at it to try. But if I had a little girl or boy right now--after reading this story--the first thing I would do is hug him or her and not let go for awhile.

Two individuals who deserve to be raked over hot coals

but I'll settle for life in prison:

Life term for father who raped baby daughter

A father who filmed himself raping his baby daughter has been jailed for life.

The 29-year-old man raped the girl at least twice and carried out other sexual abuse which he recorded on his phone, St Albans Crown Court heard.

In a victim impact statement the baby's mother said: "He is her dad. If I couldn't leave her with him, who could I leave him with?"

The man, from Hertfordshire, must serve a minimum of five years and 291 days before being considered for parole.

Please, never parole someone who is this depraved. I don't know which bothered me more; the fact he raped a baby or that he filmed it on his camera phone and thought that was cool.

Cops: N.J. teen sold stepsister, 7, for party sex: Trenton mayor calls crime “sickening,” says cases among worst he’s seen

A 15-year-old New Jersey girl set up her 7-year-old stepsister to have sex with as many as seven men and boys at a weekend party near their home and also accepted money for herself, police said.

Trenton police Capt. Joseph Juniak said Wednesday that the older girl started by taking money to have sex with several men at a party in a high-rise apartment. The teen then gave some of the money she had collected to the younger girl to let the men start touching her, Juniak said.

"It went from touching to straight out assault and rape," Juniak said. "They threatened to kill her if she screamed or told anyone."

She needs to be tried as an adult. She needs to be locked away. A fifteen-year-old is mature enough to know this was a terribly sick and wrong thing to do. As YKWIA said, she should be imprisoned until her stepsister no longer suffers from the trauma--which in all likelihood would be a life sentence. And certainly the men and boys who had sex with a seven-year-old (and the 15-year-old, depending on the statutory rape laws in New Jersey) should have the book thrown at them completely.

I have a generally positive view of humanity--its strength, its ability to pull together, the wonder of being alive and being a part of something bright and wonderful. But it's stories like this that remind me of the darker side of humanity, the perpetrators of which lurk in amongst the herd sometimes for years before their depravity is discovered. Some are obviously wrong, and people avoid them. It's the others that scare me. I'm so glad I don't have children; I'd be so neurotic about his or her safety that I'd never give the child space to grow. I recognise that.

These children were not protected from the depravity of others--only by removing these predators from society can we hope to protect more. Lock them away and throw away the key, and be done with them. No parole. No privileges. Nothing. Put them in isolation. Never let them see another face; I don't care. But most of all, never let them be in the presence of a child ever again. They are worthless to society and deserve no less. At least that's my opinion.

'[B]efore something really bad happened'

Court records: Starved kids lived a nightmare: Kids found starved, bruised and sexually assaulted in a Dallas motel

Abneris Santiago finally called relatives and told them that she feared for her life and the life of her children. She told authorities she had to do something 'before something really bad happened.'

I'm assuming she meant death, for three of her four children were found locked in a motel bathroom where they have been kept, starved and in one case continually sexually abused, for at least nine months, allegedly by the mother's boyfriend, Alfred Santiago. Their life was torture, and from the news account, their mother did very little to end the situation. Now both mother and boyfriend are in jail facing charges. The three children and their healthy one-year old half-sister (the child of both Santiagos) are in foster care, being treated. They were unable to hold down food when fed, and had to be watched for food hoarding. They had taken to keeping food hidden in things like shampoo bottles during the time they were kept in their prison.

I don't know how these children are going to recover. Physically a lot can be done, and with remedial schooling they can catch up with their peers, but they're going to have to have intensive therapy to help with their emotional and mental states. Their torturer sounds like a monster, and their mother (although I have some small sympathy for her due to her own abuse) weak, ineffectual, and slow to protect her children. The man should never be around another child again and be locked away for the rest of his life. I think it would be better if the children remained together (at least the three older ones), but not necessarily with their mother--perhaps with relatives, as the family responded after that phone call by alerting police and an uncle met the police and went with them to the motel room.

This is so sad.

Unless you are heartless

you will cry if you watch this video:

'Concrete Angel' by Martina McBride (Sorry, the embedding is disabled)

I've always liked Martina McBride's music (especially 'Independence Day'), but I had not heard this song or seen the video. Thanks, YKWIA, for showing it to me.

How horrible

Md. Mother Jailed After Bodies Of 2 Children Found in Freezer

The kicker? All three girls--the 9- and 11-year-old presumed dead (they're waiting for the bodies to thaw before they can be identified) and the 7-year-old whose escape alerted a neighbour to the tragedy--were adopted by the woman after being fostered by her, meaning that at some point there should have been oversight into placing these children in her care. There's no record that the children were sent to school. Neighbours didn't know the woman even had children; they were hidden away. The weird thing, too is that the presumption is that the children died in another town, and their bodies were moved when the woman moved to the new place. Why would anyone do that? Why wouldn't you try to bury the bodies somewhere?

I am so glad that this little girl was able to sneak out of her locked room and alert the authorities, and that the neighbour took her story of beatings and dead sisters seriously.