Morbid Fact Du Jour For September 12, 2011
Today’s Infested Yet Truly Morbid Fact!
The scene was shocking enough when police answered a call at the small brick bungalow in Berwyn (a suburb of Chicago, Illinois). A 14-year-old boy, severely mentally disabled, wearing only a T-shirt, lying in the backyard and not breathing. As he was rushed to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead, police said they made a gruesome discovery inside. Four children — ages 12 to 18 — who had never been to school, living with more than 200 animals in a home covered by feces and infested with spiders and hundreds of hissing cockroaches that measured four to five inches. One of the children, a 12-year-old, was found to have severe autism. All four of the children inside the home in the 2800 block of Lombard Avenue were “shoeless and dirty,” prosecutor Joseph Hodal said as the 14-year-old’s mother appeared in court on abuse charges. “Their feet (were) caked with feces and dirt,” police noted in their report. “The children have never been to school, nor did they receive any medical treatment,” Hodal said in court. They were living in a home without working toilets, or a washer and dryer or a refrigerator. The children slept on the floor because the bedrooms were used to house 109 cats, three dogs, 39 cockatiels, two kinkajous, a large raccoon and other exotic animals. Many of the animals were so diseased and malnourished, they had to be euthanized, including all the cats. The children’s mother, Lydia Price, 49, was charged with criminal abuse and neglect of a disabled child resulting in death, endangerment of a child, animal hoarding and cruel treatment. Price was also charged with criminal abuse and neglect of the girl with autism. Price is being held on $100,000 bail. Berwyn paramedics received a call Thursday that the boy was lying unresponsive on the lawn at the family home. The boy was taken to MacNeal Hospital in Berwyn, where he later was pronounced dead. An autopsy determined he died of natural causes related to bronchopneumonia. Three of the other children are now in the custody of the Department of Children of Family Services after being treated for flulike symptoms. A fourth child, 18, was being treated at the hospital, said Kendall Marlowe. Marlowe said the children had been kept isolated at the home, which has been declared unfit for habitation by the Berwyn Fire Department.
Culled from: Chicago Tribune
Generously submitted by: David Kulczyk
Can you f*cking imagine???? Can you f*cking IMAGINE????????? How could no one have noticed this situation before? People…
This is recent?! Those poor creatures. The noise alone had to have been terrible, yet neighbors only responded to seeing a body outside? How oblivious! People can do whatever they like to themselves, it’s the treatment of those that cannot consent (both human and other species) that drive me into a rage. And now we potentially have four more Genies.
In a lot of suburban neighborhoods, they’ll get on your case if you hang laundry outside where they can see it, or complain about a basketball hoop or skateboard ramp. But in this neighborhood they didn’t notice this kind of odor?
This is how you come to read about people that have ten bodies or more stashed in the house and they’ve gotten away with it for years. Nobody notices or if they do they don’t make enough noise about it. Anthony Sowell in Cleveland, John gacy in Chicago, Kendall Francois in Poughkeepsie, to name just a few.
The CBS affiliate in Chicago has a bit more on the story. http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2011/09/12/mom-charged-after-disabled-boy-dies-at-squalid-berwyn-home/
Apparently, neighbors thought the smell was from manure used for fertilizer because the mother was always gardening. Even gardening manure odor dissipates after some time in open air. The stench emanating from that house had to have been constant. Seems the neighbors didn’t want to get involved. Although its no excuse, our culture often discourages people from poking noses into the lives of others. Contrast this story with the way we scrutinize every detail of the private lives of celebrities. Most of us live the happy median. Tragic for those who don’t (for either extreme).
Mea culpa, today’s Tribune story indicates that multiple people attempted to intervene, all to be dismissed for one reason or another. See http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/ct-met-berwyn-hoarding-charges-0913-2-20110913,0,6554502.story
Truly sad.
The hell of this is that many times authorities will go to homes to investigate animal abuse and find children living in these conditions because social services in some states are so deluged with cases that they cant get to them all or end up investigating only the most severe.
On another note, many states are so concerned with keeping families together that children will be put back into homes even after relatives of the child/children have warned that parents are still unsafe and cannot care for children. While I pray that is not the case here-you never know what stupid things family courts will come up with. In the least these teens will need residential care for the rest of their lives.