GUILTY NY - Laura Cummings, 23, disabled, tortured & killed, North Collins, 21 Jan 2010

[Fairy1]

Freaks.

 

[tlcya]

RIP Laura.

 

[Angel4u2Whisper2]

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504083_162-20023134-504083.html

Snip:

BUFFALO, N.Y. (CBS/AP) Prosecutors said Eva Cummings put her mentally disabled daughter Laura through "an almost unimaginable living hell" of sexual, physical and emotional abuse" before she ultimately smothered her Jan. 21 at their dilapidated home outside Buffalo.

On Tuesday, the 51-year-old woman was sentenced to 57 years to life in prison, for torturing and suffocating her 23-year-old daughter.

Police said Laura, who had the mental capacity of a preteen, spent days tied to a metal chair with a hood over her head and was constantly beaten, raped, and severely sodomized with a broomstick, and that sometimes her face was pushed into feces.


RIP Laura :rose:

 

[Texas Mist]

Legal justice now for Laura's death is not as severe as what I believe Eva's eternal justice will be.

I'm still so sad for Laura that she was not saved from her hell on earth. :cry:

 

[Angel4u2Whisper2]

I think some adult (protection) workers and some child protection workers (how long has this gone on!!!) should have to answer to some serious questions on how this happened to Laura! No more hidding behind confidenality (sp) laws. IMO

 

[LaLaw2000]

Rest in peace, Laura.

We never hear about cases like Laura's until it is already too late. The damage is already done by then. I am sick of it. I want to wrap my arms around Laura and comfort her and take her away from the torture but it is too late. It is beyond reason when we have to continually say this this abused to death/murdered baby, child, or mentally challenged adult will feel no more pain. And yet, I am relieved that Laura is out of her misery and continued abuse.

Where do these people come from that can do this to another human being whether it be baby, child, or adult? Who is breeding this kind of scum? We really are our brothers keeper. Most all of us have neighbors and relatives. Do we notice anything wrong or a baby or child that does not seem right? Believe me, if I EVER observed anything whatsoever, I would get right in the middle of it. I do not buy that the neighbors were too afraid to report Laura's abuse. BS! It was their duty as a fellow human being.

I will stop now because if I don't, I will say something that will either get me banned or at least a long time out. Protective Services???? Not. It is broken beyond repair.

MOO

 

[kileyizzle]

I am suddenly overcome with rage.

I'm just throwing this out there - but seeing the INSIDE of that house how unkept it appears - hearing about the numerous phone calls and pleading with services to step in.

Makes me wonder if it was just some 'patsy' ticking off a box on a sheet to say she had attended and actually HAD NOT.

Considering how many people were following up on her well being it would of been marked as a priority. MY GOODNESS.

Is there any kind of sentence for those who are assigned to protect and DON'T because IMPO they are JUST as guilty if not more so than the abusers themselves..

Just even hearing the fact that this was more than likely the case is ... twisted enough.

This is where we need to focus. We can not afford to have 'weak links' working in our systems that are put in place to protect. We need people who care, who follow instinct - heck even just listening to what was being said would of been an indicator here.

Sadly it's taking yet another life to expose yet again the never ending frustrations of a system that is NOT working.

Who to blame i don't know.

All i know is that they could have gotten their foot in the door - judgin from how untidy the house is there was bound to be a scent, and a house is a reflection of yourselfs in most cases, neat house, neat dress. THERE ARE SO MANY POINTS.

At the end of the day - it should of taken ONE gut instinct to make the call and involve the state and save a life.

 

[believe09]

I am suddenly overcome with rage.

I'm just throwing this out there - but seeing the INSIDE of that house how unkept it appears - hearing about the numerous phone calls and pleading with services to step in.

Makes me wonder if it was just some 'patsy' ticking off a box on a sheet to say she had attended and actually HAD NOT.

Considering how many people were following up on her well being it would of been marked as a priority. MY GOODNESS.

Is there any kind of sentence for those who are assigned to protect and DON'T because IMPO they are JUST as guilty if not more so than the abusers themselves..

Just even hearing the fact that this was more than likely the case is ... twisted enough.

This is where we need to focus. We can not afford to have 'weak links' working in our systems that are put in place to protect. We need people who care, who follow instinct - heck even just listening to what was being said would of been an indicator here.

Sadly it's taking yet another life to expose yet again the never ending frustrations of a system that is NOT working.

Who to blame i don't know.

All i know is that they could have gotten their foot in the door - judgin from how untidy the house is there was bound to be a scent, and a house is a reflection of yourselfs in most cases, neat house, neat dress. THERE ARE SO MANY POINTS.

At the end of the day - it should of taken ONE gut instinct to make the call and involve the state and save a life.

I suspect you have hit upon why APS would not show up at the hearing. They are going to the mat not to turn over those records.

I rarely go along this vein, but I think it would be very fair if they had photos of Laura posted in their cubicles and required to carry them in their cars for life. Never forget. They should never ever be able to forget what they allowed to happen.

 

[Belinda]

I feel so bad for her brother. He tried so hard to save her and no one would listen. There needs to be severe consequences for this. The system didn't just fail, it didn't even bother.

 

[believe09]

Mr. Wright made seven statements to investigators admitting to raping his sister and beating her. He would cover her face with a hood to avoid her eyes.

The sentence in the article that nauseated me the most is the part of the statement where he said he resumed raping his sister in the weeks prior to her death because she "came on to him."
http://www.wivb.com/dpp/news/erie/No-break-in-heart-wrenching-testimony

He has not a chance in prison. I am trying to picture this coward explaining the choices he made here to some of the more hardened criminals.

Revenge will not bring Laura back and will not make ammends for the horrific abuse she suffered in her short life, but it is tempting for me to head down that path.

 

[believe09]

of Raping and Torturing his sister Laura Cummings.

***Warning-the link contains graphic details.***

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110420/ap_on_re_us/us_disabled_woman_fatal_abuse

Mr. Wright's defense was his IQ.

Nothing sums up this heinous event as well as the words of the ADA:

"All Laura knew, especially the last couple of months of her life, was pain and torture," Assistant District Attorney Thomas Finnerty said following the verdict. He recalled the first time he read the multiple confessions Wright gave to investigators.
"I got about halfway through the second statement and I had to get up, close the door in my office and I just started crying," he said, breaking down.


Somehow, I am still sitting here shaking with rage. Somehow, I just dont feel this is enough and that this resembles closure. :banghead::banghead::banghead:

 

[girlinblue]

Donn Esmonde has a pretty provoking piece in Easter Sunday's paper.

Laura's voice will continue to haunt us

Her voice shouts to us from the grave. It shouted through a downtown courtroom in recent weeks, in the trial of her half brother Luke Wright. It resounded through a horrified community. It was so loud, and the details of what she tried to tell us so horrific, that many of us could not stand to listen.

Laura Cummings. Sweet-faced victim. Twenty-three years old, but mentally and emotionally like an 8-year-old. She should have been taken from her nightmarish, abusive home and placed with people who loved her.

Instead, 15 years of torment went unchecked. At least a half-dozen calls for help in her final year, when the abuse reached frenzied levels, went unheeded. Laura was suffocated and scalded to death in her North Collins home in January 2010. Homicidal mother Eva Cummings— who hated Laura for her disability— is in jail for life. The sadistic Wright was convicted Wednesday of all 10 felony counts involving Laura’s abuse.

Let me state the obvious: Laura Cummings is dead because in ways large and small, a lot of people failed her. At least some of those whose job it was to help her should — and will — have to answer for the horrendous way that she lived, and died.

http://www.buffalonews.com/city/columns/donn-esmonde/article401491.ece

ETA: For anyone who doesn't want to read the entire thing, there is an attorney suing on behalf of Laura's estate, and "As many as 10 Social Services officials— mainly in Adult Protective Services— will explain under oath why Laura Cummings was not helped. In the name of accountability, and for the sake of all of the Laura Cummingses to come, it needs to happen."

 

[believe09]

I want to attend this depo or trial. I want to know how and why they thought they could leave this woman wallowing in this misery. How they live with themselves.

We know already what we will hear-it will be a case of hot potato and the lowest, least responsible most disposable person on the totem pole will take the heat for it.

Please, not this time.

 

[JusticeWillBeServed]

Laura Cummings laid to rest six years later

http://www.wgrz.com/news/laura-cummings-laid-to-rest-six-years-later/277141099

Six years after her death, Laura Cummings finally gets a formal dignified burial. The 23-year-old developmentally challenged woman died at the hands of her mother after years of being tortured at home.

This burial happened thanks to the Loving Laura Project, which raised funds for the burial. Laura was cremated after her death in 2010.

"Her brother Richard had the ashes, I think this was an appropriate time to part with those and give her the dignified burial marking the final resting place with a beautiful headstone," said Suzanne McKenney, administrator of the project.