Just when you think you’ve heard everything about the pain non autistic people visit on autistic people, along comes a new scumbag with a new ‘method’ of hurting people:
An ex-con babysitter was sentenced to 50 years in prison Monday for using a shower to severely burn an 8-year-old autistic child after she soiled herself while in his care.
Incredibly, it seems that the victims mother sides with this person:
The defendant’s mother, Vivian Acosta, held up a poster board containing photos of him and the victim playing together as she testified on his behalf Monday.
“The children, he loves them,” she said. “I know he made a small error in leaving her alone, and I beg for mercy of the court. I know he knew better, but it was an accident.”
Yeah, the children, he loves them. Thats right up there with the stupid, it burns (pun intended).
During the trial, jurors heard testimony that the shower water reached up to 157 degrees and that human instinct would cause even those with severe autism to step away from such temperatures.
The pattern of the third-degree burns are consistent with the girl being held down, DeMartino said. The girl, whose autism prevents her from speaking, has undergone multiple surgeries and has almost died as a result of the burns, he said.
I don’t know who’s worse, the scumbag who held down this little girl and purposefully scalded her or the mother who’s excusing his actions.
Left Brain Right Brain 
That’s disgusting. Obviously she must have been in the hot water for more than a few seconds to have burns so bad they required surgery. She’d have gotten out of the tub or at least screamed. If I was the kid who got burned, I wouldn’t want my mother to be praising the guy who did that–please tell me they took the kids away from her.
How horrible! But given the benefit of the doubt, the mother may be telling the truth and it was just an accident. Or she’s really chummy with the babysitter and is a terrible mother! This is so sad. I hope the child’s doing better and the mother be investigated as well.
nonverbal doesn’t mean unable to scream. I find it very hard to imagine even a reasonable scenerio where the man wasn’t forcing the girl to stay in the hot water stream.
This. This is why I hate so much about so much in the autism world. Of course it was on purpose. Of course it was by force. Of course the mother is an awful terrible mother and altogether poor excuse for a human being who should have custody revoked. I don’t have to be a parent to know that. I just have to have a shred of humanity.
(cries)
I’m sorry, Kristina, I don’t think it’s possible that this can be an accident. He held her down under a stream of water that was well above boiling.
No one does that by accident.
I can’t actually type the stream of profanities that would be my natural response, because they would be trapped by the spam filter. But you can imagine what they would be.
I hope that parent is removed from their child’s life.
Note for the UK readers: This story is from San Antonio, TX. The US uses the Fahrenheit temperature scale. 157 degrees F = 69.4 degrees C.
And I will add that the fact that the water was not literally boiling does not make this story any less horrifying.
i want to vomit.
Me too David, me too.
The use of scalding water isnot uncommon in abuse of children and vulnerable adults – possibly because the excuse of ‘I didn’t know’ – to the point that knowing patterns of non-acidentalscalds is fairly corechild protection stuff. It’s still horiffic