Mother, maternal grandparents nearly starved boy, 7

[Anthony]

Police arrested a woman and her parents after the three allegedly starved the mother's seven-year-old boy. Authorities removed the boy from the Greenville, Pennsylvania home where he lived with his mother and maternal grandparents after a woman walking her dog reported seeing "a human skeleton".
The child somehow broke-out from his house and ran into the road because he wanted to pet a dog a woman was walking, said Detective Piatek.
“The woman was shocked. She called Children and Youth Services right away and told them she had seen a [living] skeleton.
She said there was a skeleton living in that house that the boy had run from,†Piatek said.
[video=youtube_share;2HmZtfOEUiw]http://youtu.be/2HmZtfOEUiw[/video]
Police say they found the 7-year-old victim so starved of food, he would catch insects to eat during the few minutes he was allowed outside.
“He looked like a Holocaust victim,†said Piatek, who specializes in child abuse cases. “He had been beaten with a belt every
time he tried to get food. He had three abscessed teeth and weighed 20 pounds when he was taken to Children's Hospital. The starvation could have killed him. The abscessed teeth could have killed him.â€
The victim has three siblings, however they were not abused.
"Their sole motive seems to have been that they disliked the child," Piatek said.
According to police, the victim's mother had taken him out of school a year ago and enrolled him in online classes.
Debra Rader, the boy’s paternal grandmother claims she called authorities twice to inform them about her former daughter-in-law.
She wouldn't allow her ex-husband's family to have contact with the boy, and she acted “strange all the time,†Debra Rader said.
“We would go over there to check on the boy, but we were never allowed to see him, so we weren't sure what was going on, †said Debra.
After seeing her grandson for the first time since being rescued she was shocked.
“It was horrible,†Debra told reporters. “I'm sorry, but you wouldn't do to a dog what they did to that beautiful boy. They should starve them, and see if they like it.â€
The boy is now foster care and is doing well. “I saw him June 27 when he was in the Mercer County Courthouse, and he was smiling and pleasant, a friendly little boy,†Piatek recalled.
His sisters, 11 and 14 and brother, 9, have been placed in different homes and are healthy, police said.
The mother, 28-year-old Mary C. Rader, and her parents who lived with them, Dennis C. Beighley, 58, and Deana Beighley, 47, were charged with aggravated assault,
unlawful restraint of a minor, false imprisonment, child endangerment and conspiracy.
All three suspects are free after posting a $75,000 unsecured bond on Friday.

 

[Muthoni]

What is very worrying about this story is that there was no rational thinking among the three adults. None of them spoke up and told the others they were doing the wrong thing. They all decided to participate in this wrong doing. What about the siblings? They are not so young to ask why their brother is not being fed. It does not matter why they did not like him; it is every child’s right to be treated humanely.