Woman Stabs Nephew's Eyes, Then Herself

[Squishified]

Autistic boy will likely be permanently blind:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,314485,00.html

[teonspaleprincess]

The police should have stabbed her tail in the other eye too!!! This is just crazy. I really want to hear her reasoning behind this one.

[Taximom]

:mad: OMG as if this kid didn't have enough struggles in life. :mad:

[MeoW333]

OMG, that is horrible!! I can't even imagine.. she must be crazy literally crazy.. My prayers for the boy..

[JanetElaine]

Relatives, for unclear reasons, waited more than 10 hours before calling 911, police said.

Cult? (Can't find the right word now, dang it).

[Taximom]

I wish I could take care of that boy. My heart is breaking for him.

[JanetElaine]

What aggravates me more than anything is he was mute already, and now blind too... what a witch. :mad:

[misterallgood]

The police should have stabbed her tail in the other eye too!!! This is just crazy. I really want to hear her reasoning behind this one.

Reasoning of any sort recognizable to sane human beings will have nothing to do with this.

Steve/Mr. A

[misterallgood]

I just had to add -- one of my sons is autistic. My youngest daughter has just been diagnosed with Asperger's. My sister is autistic. Stories like this bring me as close as I'll ever come to wanting to go vigilante on an accused criminal.

Steve/Mr. A

[Filly]

I just had to add -- one of my sons is autistic. My youngest daughter has just been diagnosed with Asperger's. My sister is autistic. Stories like this bring me as close as I'll ever come to wanting to go vigilante on an accused criminal.

Steve/Mr. A

Steve I can't even say I can imagine how you feel, but no doubt this just did it for ya. Thinking of you and your family. This is just so sad for this little boy.

[Talisman]

The article stated that relatives waited longer that ten hours before calling 911! The same article says that the Grandmother adored the 12 year old. Why on earth did they wait that long?

Sometimes I just get so dismayed with humans.

misterallgood, you are correct .... reasoning will play no part in this.

[dark_shadows]

Reasoning of any sort recognizable to sane human beings will have nothing to do with this.

Steve/Mr. A
Dearest mistergoodall,
Why was this said;
"No charges have been filed and no names have been released".
This is from the link on the first post of the thread.

Where is the sanity of that statement?


Respectfully,
dark_shadows

[reb]

what's so strange is that she isn't even his mother (weird that i should even have to say that). it's his AUNT.

[concernedperson]

Sounds like some paranoid schizophrenia going on with the aunt. The rest of the family doesn't sound real swift either. Why wait 10 hours?

[misterallgood]

Dearest mistergoodall,
Why was this said;
"No charges have been filed and no names have been released".
This is from the link on the first post of the thread.

Where is the sanity of that statement?


Respectfully,
dark_shadows

I don't think there is any. The only thing that makes sense where the aunt is concerned is the idea that she herself may be clinically mentally ill. A crime this horrific, that's one of the few things that might make sense.

Steve/Mr. A

[misterallgood]

Steve I can't even say I can imagine how you feel, but no doubt this just did it for ya. Thinking of you and your family. This is just so sad for this little boy.

There was a bit in the article about the boy running around in his underwear outside. I could so see my son doing that if we dropped our guard for a minute (we don't; we have a doorguard on the front door so it can't be opened by kids).

There is a lot of stress in having autism in your family, but there are moments of great joy, and a lot of remarkable things can be learned about human nature. My son has taught me just how strong the human need for reaching out to others truly is. He is almost mute, at 4, but it turns out he has an unusual type of autism sometimes referred to as hyperlexia. Hyperlexic children literally learn to read and write before they can speak, and they teach themselves. My son was putting words together and learning to neatly write the names of things he liked when he was barely 4 -- and in part, it was also his way of getting around his inability to speak the words and still communicate with his mother and me.

It makes me incredibly sad when I think about the people afflicted with autism spectrum disorders who are not born into loving homes, who don't have caregivers open-minded and intelligent enough to learn what they are dealing with. I'm overly-protective of my kids and to some degree my sister (who is 47) already; stories like this just make that worse, somehow.

Thanks for your kind words, filly.

Steve/Mr. A

[Spazkat9696]

Relatives, for unclear reasons, waited more than 10 hours before calling 911, police said.

Cult? (Can't find the right word now, dang it).

The only reason I could possibly think that it would take 10 hours to call the police it that this happened in the evening, and given the fact the boy is mute he did not cry out. Meaning the grandmother may not of noticed anything was wrong until morning. A lot of children with autism are given medication to help/make them sleep at night, so if this happened at bedtime I could see it going unnoticed by anyone until morning. I mean it's not like the aunt was gonna call 911 and say "um excuse me but I just stabbed my nephew in the eyes do ya think you could send someone over?" Having worked with over 100 children with autism I can say some have a very high pain tolerance, and do not let you know when they are hurt or injured. The thing that really makes me so angry is I can honestly say I have learned more working with these children than I could have ever hoped to learn in school. Each one, though difficult at times, has a special gift to share. I love and care about each child I work with and could never dream of harming them, even though they sometimes attack and harm me. I just can't understand how she could not see this child for the blessing he is. I feel that if she did there is no way she could of ever harmed him. Of course that is true for every child, yet I read about the horrible things their so called loved ones do to them on here everyday.
Another thing that makes me very angry is by taking away his eyesight she may have taken away his only means of communication, given that he is mute. For those of you who don't know children with autism seem to understand pictures better than words, so a lot of children with autism, I'm not sure how many, use PECS (picture exchange communication system) or a PECS based system. Basically they have a book or a board with pictures that represent mostly nouns so they can communicate their wants and needs. Most of the non-verbal kids I have worked with have them, and they communicate more than you would expect. I don't know if this child used a communication system; However, he will no longer have that option because this woman took that from him. They should blind her, and remove her ability to speak, and then send her to prison for the rest of her life.

[Spazkat9696]

[quote=misterallgood;1828335]
It makes me incredibly sad when I think about the people afflicted with autism spectrum disorders who are not born into loving homes, who don't have caregivers open-minded and intelligent enough to learn what they are dealing with. /quote]

I have dealt with this, and it is horrible. The children try so hard to please their parents to no avail. By the time they come to me it's a building process. I always make a extra special effort with those kids to let them know I do love and care about them and what they do. Sometimes it feels like we, the academic staff, are the only ones who provide the child with the emotional and physical support needed. I know teachers who have incorporated lessons on how to do laundry into their everyday lesson just so a student could have clean clothing a clean coat to ware. One teacher would get a student off the bus, and take him to the room to change before the assistants brought the other students to the room. That way his classmates did not know he wore the same clothing to school everyday (an extra set of clothing must be kept at school in case of emergencies). Then they would wash what he wore to school, and he would ware it the next day. It was a good lesson because the students learned how to wash clothes, but still very sad. She even bought toothbrushes for all of the students, and had them practice brushing their teeth after the morning snack and lunch. I have seen some sad stuff, and it angers me. I often wondered if the parents would act the same way if their child didn't have ASD, but the reality is ASD or not no one should be treated like that. I have noticed that their is a real unfairness when it comes to the way parents treat their children with ASD. It seems the more money the family has the better the child is treated. I'm not sure if this is because their families are typically better educated then lower income families, or if upper income families have more hope because they can afford services for their children that are not covered by insurance or IDEA. What ever the cause I wish it did not exist, and that all children were treated with the dignity and respect they deserve.

[Taximom]

Spazkat, I hear a lot of stories like you tell. It's very sad. I wish I could take them all in to my home.

I think the "aunt" is clearly mentally ill. That grandmother must have had her hands full.

What's interesting to me is that autistic children often lack good eye contact. He may be higher-functioning of course, but I can't help but wonder why she chose the eyes. That's a very specific target and one where I would think she felt she had a good reason to do so.

[MeoW333]

I wonder if the aunt was having religious delusions involving seraphim (order of angels), i think seraphim are blind in some interpretations.

[believe09]

The Aunt stabbed herself in the eye as well, right? Very Equus like, I have to say...in any case it is clear she slipped a gear. I have nieces and nephews that have a range of ASD from Asberger's on. Aint nothin' but a thang in my family, if you forgive the slang-we are used to unusual personalities so we embrace it all.

[Reannan]

Apparently, the aunt had only recently moved into the home. She stabbed him around 1:00 a.m. and the family called for help around 11:00 am. Could he have been in his room and unable to call out for help, and the family didn't realize anything was wrong until late morning - thinking he was sleeping in? There is a video associated with this link, and he looks to be heavily bandaged, so I would imagine the wounds would have been very obvious if anyone had seen him before calling. That is the only explanation I can think of for the delay in dialing 911.

http://www.local10.com/news/14740373/detail.html

[Reannan]

It will be interesting to find out more information about the aunt. Could she have stabbed his eyes because he witnessed something she didn't want him to ever see again???

[Reannan]

Here is a bit more information:

"Neighbors in the 8500 block of Northwest 53rd Street said they had not noticed any problems at the home, where the boy lived with his grandmother. County property records show the house is owned by Stella Babington, 72."

"Police escorted from the home Friday morning the unidentified aunt accused in the attack.

"They were pulling the woman away, and she was ranting and raving about suppressed people," neighbor Joanne Kull said. "She looked very angry."

http://tinyurl.com/2zfend

[philamena]

Sounds like some paranoid schizophrenia going on with the aunt. The rest of the family doesn't sound real swift either. Why wait 10 hours?

Ditto.
(How are you cp? Hope all is well.):)

[SeriouslySearching]

I just had to add -- one of my sons is autistic. My youngest daughter has just been diagnosed with Asperger's. My sister is autistic. Stories like this bring me as close as I'll ever come to wanting to go vigilante on an accused criminal.

Steve/Mr. AThis story has shaken me to the core. There really ARE no words. My anger is only matched by my sadness for what this child is going through and will continue to go through. My grandson is autistic and to imagine for one second what I would do to the person who ever caused him this much pain...is too much anger for me to handle.

I know the frustrations, the joys, the sadness, and the hope which goes along with having a special needs child in our family, but we have unconditional love and understanding. We work hard to do whatever needs to be done and more to give him every advantage for leading a near to normal life. My grandson realizes he is different, even at four years old, but he just thinks it is because he is more intelligent than everyone else (probably because he is.).

I don't know how they will go about communicating with him now, but someone will find a way. They have to.

Sign language was a huge breakthrough for us with my grandson to unlock speech. They can still use sign on the palms of his hands.

I will keep this child in my thoughts and prayers.

As for his aunt, I will pray she doesn't turn out to be some crackhead because then Steve and I WILL have to hunt her ass down.

[fivekidz4me]

Mr. A
My oldest son with infantile autism was hyperlexic too...and had 5 words maybe by age 4. They said he would never be able to communicate with words. I figured that if he was smart enough to read, then the problem was that he needed a reason to speak or understand why speech was needed. I made a reward system to help him speak. He was rewarded for saying any sound at first for things he wanted...and then I gradually made it words. It took many months, but this was really helpful. I don't want to get your hopes up for a speaking child, but if I listened to the "professionals" my son would not be speaking incessantly now. I basically modified and shaped a "PECS" like system with positive behavioral interventions...but used words instead of pictures. If you want details or any samples I'd be willing to send them to you. Don't lose hope, keep looking for strategies to help your son!
PS My 15 yo daughter is Asperger's too, so I can relate to your situation. Bless you for being a loving caring dad!
There was a bit in the article about the boy running around in his underwear outside. I could so see my son doing that if we dropped our guard for a minute (we don't; we have a doorguard on the front door so it can't be opened by kids).

There is a lot of stress in having autism in your family, but there are moments of great joy, and a lot of remarkable things can be learned about human nature. My son has taught me just how strong the human need for reaching out to others truly is. He is almost mute, at 4, but it turns out he has an unusual type of autism sometimes referred to as hyperlexia. Hyperlexic children literally learn to read and write before they can speak, and they teach themselves. My son was putting words together and learning to neatly write the names of things he liked when he was barely 4 -- and in part, it was also his way of getting around his inability to speak the words and still communicate with his mother and me.

It makes me incredibly sad when I think about the people afflicted with autism spectrum disorders who are not born into loving homes, who don't have caregivers open-minded and intelligent enough to learn what they are dealing with. I'm overly-protective of my kids and to some degree my sister (who is 47) already; stories like this just make that worse, somehow.

Thanks for your kind words, filly.

Steve/Mr. A

[Reannan]

It sure would have been nice if this child had already learned to type. Are any of you familiar with Amanda Baggs? She is an autistic lady who posts videos of her life and experiences on Youtube. Dr. Sanjay Gupta, the MD for ABC News discovered one of her video's and did a piece on it. Here is a link to the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnylM1hI2jc

She explained by her electronic keyboard which has a speech element, that it was a video which represents how she interacts with her world. She is humming, what I find to be a very beautiful and haunting melody that is overlayed with her standing in front of her window "interacting" with what she "sees" outside and with her making noises with objects that she finds interesting both by the "sounds" they make, and by the "shape" that they are. She also frequently blogs about many different issues in life, and that can be found here:
http://ballastexistenz.autistics.org/

My heart just breaks for the boy in this story. With limited means to communite and experience the world, he has now been denied one of them. What was the aunt thinking? Why did it take so long for help to be summoned?

[dark_shadows]

It sure would have been nice if this child had already learned to type. Are any of you familiar with Amanda Baggs? She is an autistic lady who posts videos of her life and experiences on Youtube. Dr. Sanjay Gupta, the MD for ABC News discovered one of her video's and did a piece on it. Here is a link to the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnylM1hI2jc

She explained by her electronic keyboard which has a speech element, that it was a video which represents how she interacts with her world. She is humming, what I find to be a very beautiful and haunting melody that is overlayed with her standing in front of her window "interacting" with what she "sees" outside and with her making noises with objects that she finds interesting both by the "sounds" they make, and by the "shape" that they are. She also frequently blogs about many different issues in life, and that can be found here:
http://ballastexistenz.autistics.org/

My heart just breaks for the boy in this story. With limited means to communite and experience the world, he has now been denied one of them. What was the aunt thinking? Why did it take so long for help to be summoned?
Dearest Reannan,:blowkiss:
Amanda lives less than 20 miles from me and I posted a thread about her months ago in the jury room.
I will see if I can find the link for it.

So much Love and Respect,
dark_shadows

[Reannan]

Why thank you Dark Shadows! I have never visited the Jury Room. I will take a stroll over there latter and take a look! I already spend SO much time at this....my family thinks I am in need of therapy. I told them to check the yellow pages and when they find a twelve step program for true crime analysis, I will check it out. :p

[dark_shadows]

Why thank you Dark Shadows! I have never visited the Jury Room. I will take a stroll over there latter and take a look! I already spend SO much time at this....my family thinks I am in need of therapy. I told them to check the yellow pages and when they find a twelve step program for true crime analysis, I will check it out. :p
My very dearest Reannan,:blowkiss:
Click on the link below to see the thread I started about Amanda, it is from Feb of 2007;

http://websleuths.com/forums/showthread.php?t=47235&highlight=amanda


There are video links on the first post of the thread.

This is one of the links from that thread, Video reveals world of autistic woman (http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/anderson.cooper.360/blog/2007/02/video-reveals-world-of-autistic-woman.html).


So much Love and Respect for you,
dark_shadows

[southcitymom]

Why thank you Dark Shadows! I have never visited the Jury Room. I will take a stroll over there latter and take a look! I already spend SO much time at this....my family thinks I am in need of therapy. I told them to check the yellow pages and when they find a twelve step program for true crime analysis, I will check it out. :p

LOL, Reannan - and welcome to the club! ;)

[Amraann]

There was a bit in the article about the boy running around in his underwear outside. I could so see my son doing that if we dropped our guard for a minute (we don't; we have a doorguard on the front door so it can't be opened by kids).

There is a lot of stress in having autism in your family, but there are moments of great joy, and a lot of remarkable things can be learned about human nature. My son has taught me just how strong the human need for reaching out to others truly is. He is almost mute, at 4, but it turns out he has an unusual type of autism sometimes referred to as hyperlexia. Hyperlexic children literally learn to read and write before they can speak, and they teach themselves. My son was putting words together and learning to neatly write the names of things he liked when he was barely 4 -- and in part, it was also his way of getting around his inability to speak the words and still communicate with his mother and me.

It makes me incredibly sad when I think about the people afflicted with autism spectrum disorders who are not born into loving homes, who don't have caregivers open-minded and intelligent enough to learn what they are dealing with. I'm overly-protective of my kids and to some degree my sister (who is 47) already; stories like this just make that worse, somehow.

Thanks for your kind words, filly.

Steve/Mr. A

Steve, I don't think I knew that you also had an autistic child.

My own son, Richie... has the same form of Autism.
When I read this case I immediately thought that the aunt was obviously mentally ill and went for his eyes because autistic children often have a certain gaze and they do not usually make eye contact.

[KatK]

Oh... I just have no words, how incredibly sad. :( It's hard enough to cope in the world not seeing very well (or at all) but to have problems processing the information you are taking in, and making sense of it so you can relate to it, and *THEN* be blinded maliciously? May that little one be able to love, and trust again one day! It makes me cry!

[SeriouslySearching]

I forget to mention my grandson is Hyperlexic, too. The PECS system worked well for a little bit with him, but he got very bored with it. We switch it up for him and he is doing much better.

He literally taught himself sign language from a book we got at Burger King then we moved onto watching things like Signing Times etc. He still uses it when he has a difficult time expressing himself. For the most part now, he is pretty verbal and we are working hard on conversational speech.

[Taximom]

Oh, SS!! We love our Signing Time videos. They are the only ones that she will watch. There are some pretty boring ones out there.

I'm glad your grandson is so smart and has such loving family members to help him succeed.

[kazzbar]

Bad enough that the poor boy has to deal with being autistic and mute without some crazy loon stabbing him in the eyes. Now he has to deal with blindness too. What is wrong with people?
Sometimes I just cannot fathom what the world is coming too..
Sounds like this woman may have mental health issues..
:furious: :furious:

[SeriouslySearching]

Oh, SS!! We love our Signing Time videos. They are the only ones that she will watch. There are some pretty boring ones out there.

I'm glad your grandson is so smart and has such loving family members to help him succeed.We are lucky to have him in our lives! He is the special flower that just requires a bit more room to grow and extra care, much like a rare orchid!

We have quite a support system set up for him. He has his mom and aunt who live with him, my sister is five minutes away and is there daily. I see my grands every chance I get, but talk to them on the phone every day!

[Reannan]

I certainly don't want to hijack this thread and turn it into an autism thread, but you can't discuss this crime and NOT discuss autism. His autism....and possibly his aunt's.....demands attention. I hope I don't insult anyone who has an autistic child or loved one. I do not have anyone in my immediate family who has autism, and therefore, you can argue that I have no right to say ANYTHING about this issue. With that preface, I have been fascinated by autism for years. I work in the medical field, and I keep a file on autism. I collect articles that relate to various theories and to the growing nature of the epidemic. Epidemic is what it is, and I think the medical community should hang it's head in shame at the neglect that has been fosted on this issue. After many years of collecting information, and then after watching the Amanda Baggs video, I sort of have to wonder if autism isn't really some form of evolution. I suspect that perhaps autistic individuals have abilities that we, i.e. non-autistic people lack. Perhaps they have resources and talents that we have not yet tapped into. They are obviously cognizant humans. They are AWARE. They are aware in ways that WE are not. I totally respect them, and in one aspect, I hold them in awe. I can only pray, and pray hard, that this particular child can call forth his talents with being able to "interact with his environment" in ways that WE can't, i.e by hearing, touch, smell, taste; and that perhaps he can find another way to connect. I wish I could connect with him and let him know that he is valued and LOVED. In fact, I wish that I could connect with him....and with ALL autistic children and let them know that they are VALUED. They are possibly the key to the future of the human race. IMHO.

[Taximom]

We certainly need more people like you in our little world, Reannan. (Which actually isn't so little anymore.)
:blowkiss:

[believe09]

I certainly don't want to hijack this thread and turn it into an autism thread, but you can't discuss this crime and NOT discuss autism. His autism....and possibly his aunt's.....demands attention. I hope I don't insult anyone who has an autistic child or loved one. I do not have anyone in my immediate family who has autism, and therefore, you can argue that I have no right to say ANYTHING about this issue. With that preface, I have been fascinated by autism for years. I work in the medical field, and I keep a file on autism. I collect articles that relate to various theories and to the growing nature of the epidemic. Epidemic is what it is, and I think the medical community should hang it's head in shame at the neglect that has been fosted on this issue. After many years of collecting information, and then after watching the Amanda Baggs video, I sort of have to wonder if autism isn't really some form of evolution. I suspect that perhaps autistic individuals have abilities that we, i.e. non-autistic people lack. Perhaps they have resources and talents that we have not yet tapped into. They are obviously cognizant humans. They are AWARE. They are aware in ways that WE are not. I totally respect them, and in one aspect, I hold them in awe. I can only pray, and pray hard, that this particular child can call forth his talents with being able to "interact with his environment" in ways that WE can't, i.e by hearing, touch, smell, taste; and that perhaps he can find another way to connect. I wish I could connect with him and let him know that he is valued and LOVED. In fact, I wish that I could connect with him....and with ALL autistic children and let them know that they are VALUED. They are possibly the key to the future of the human race. IMHO.

You are speaking my language!!! I have often wondered about the need to "treat" and make these amazing spirits conform to what is "normal." Each of the members of my family that I have had the pleasure to watch grow is such a unique being! I hate the changes and challenges that come with the medication. If you can find the key to their learning and communication abilities, and use that as the building block to their emotional and intellectual growth then the end result is such a brilliant difference to the rest of us "non" ASD folks! In my family we hold debates between those who are bio-chemically challenged and those who are ASD...ok no hate mail please:rolleyes:.

[Taximom]

Not saying you have to, but if you want to carry on the current discussion there's a thread here:
http://www.websleuths.com/forums/showthread.php?t=51363

[Spazkat9696]

Seeing the case of the mom killing her daughter made me think of this case. Have there been any updates? I coulden't find any, but that doesn't mean anything.

[SLP]

Seeing the case of the mom killing her daughter made me think of this case. Have there been any updates? I coulden't find any, but that doesn't mean anything.

I found this article...

http://www.topix.com/content/trb/2007/12/boy-stabbed-in-eyes-in-lauderhill-out-of-hospital

[Spazkat9696]

Well it's nice to hear he's out of the hospital at least. Poor thing afraid to sleep. I can't imagine what he's going through. I hope can see well enough out of the one eye to get around the house and school with out assistance.