GUILTY PA - Jarrod Tutko, 9, disabled, starved to death, Harrisburg, 29 July 2014

[passionflower]

My neighbor has Fragile X, yes he was difficult at times, but he is 19 now and a sweetheart.
Love and care is what these children need. He went to special schools and day camps in the summer.
Why didn't these monsters give him up even to a home for the disabled?
IMO I think it was for the money the state offered.

 

[seattlechiquita]

My neighbor has Fragile X, yes he was difficult at times, but he is 19 now and a sweetheart.
Love and care is what these children need. He went to special schools and day camps in the summer.
Why didn't these monsters give him up even to a home for the disabled?
IMO I think it was for the money the state offered.

Love and care indeed. And, when it comes a time to be loving enough to say "I can't care for you anymore my beloved child", you hand him over to a facility that can fulfill that role. Not lock him/her up in a room with his own feces. I am beyond @$%%%

oh, and hi passionflower :hug:

 

[newone]

I found two articles with some information about the couple's earlier years.

http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2014/09/post_712.html#incart_story_package

http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/in...o_srs_cousin_offers.html#incart_story_package

excellent links for background information - thank you

http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2014/09/post_712.html#incart_story_package

"He had a child with another woman in Shenandoah, to whom he was not married, and she successfully sued him in late 1999 for custody of their two-year-old son. In court documents, the woman said she had been caring for the boy since he was born. She said Jarrod Tutko had the child only once, and brought him back to her sick.

"The father is not a responsible individual," she said in court documents.''

 

[MyBelle]

My neighbor has Fragile X, yes he was difficult at times, but he is 19 now and a sweetheart.
Love and care is what these children need. He went to special schools and day camps in the summer.
Why didn't these monsters give him up even to a home for the disabled?
IMO I think it was for the money the state offered.

That does appear to be the reason and it is nearly impossible to wrap my brain around it.

 

[Hoosgirl]

I'm not quite sure that the weight of "16.9 pounds" is correct... not because it's inconceivable for a nine-year-old who has starved to death, but because the boy is also described as 40 inches tall. That's about the height of a five-year-old but only about half the weight of a five-year-old. I don't know that any human being could have held on to life long enough to weigh that little. Perhaps it was 16.9 kilograms?

Shockingly, it was pounds according to the autopsy report. Less than when he was returned from foster care as an infant

 

[Hippiemomof5]

$3200 is pretty decent money for that part of PA!

 

[seattlechiquita]

excellent links for background information - thank you

http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2014/09/post_712.html#incart_story_package

"He had a child with another woman in Shenandoah, to whom he was not married, and she successfully sued him in late 1999 for custody of their two-year-old son. In court documents, the woman said she had been caring for the boy since he was born. She said Jarrod Tutko had the child only once, and brought him back to her sick.

"The father is not a responsible individual," she said in court documents.''

I am only so happy this woman kept her son away from this .

 

[newone]

I am only so happy this woman kept her son away from this .

IIRC there was earlier MSM reports that he had injured his back and was on or applying for disability...... one wonders aloud if he successfully avoided paying child support for his first child MOO

 

[always reading]

they would also be entitled to SNAP (food stamps)

And probably housing assistance, along with electric assistance. Since they were both unemployed, they probably paid very little for rent. $2100 a month is a lot if you don't have many bills to pay.

 

[passionflower]

In PA every disabled child can get SSD and healthcare. Why would you keep having babies if there is a chance of them having severe health problems? Wondering what kinds of issues and if any of them are healthy and go to school, doctors etc. Boh of these parents have been arrested. This is as bad as Erica Murray house of horrors. Her boyfriend should be arrested also.

 

[ontheclock]

Hmm, so, I'd really like to see some forensic accounting. Bad enough to neglect your children (astronomically), even worse to do so while collecting benefits in their behalf.

Do we really know the extent of coverage available to these children? Did the parents really refuse normal routes of social aid? Medically, financially? Over 3k a month is way more than I make. Their house looks like crap (sorry), how much do you think they paid in rent/mortgage? I'm sure most of the children would be eligible for medical aid. Was it not enough?

They failed so miserably.

Maybe I'm being unfair. I haven't walked in their shoes.

For the life of me, I will never understand their actions, and it was so unnecessary.

Unforgivable.

 

[chaotic_idealism]

And probably housing assistance, along with electric assistance. Since they were both unemployed, they probably paid very little for rent. $2100 a month is a lot if you don't have many bills to pay.

I'm disabled myself, and I get a lot less than that, so much so that I'm desperately trying to hold on to a tiny basement apartment right now and have never lived above the poverty line in my entire life. Why is it that the few people who cheat the system seem to do so well, while the people who really need it get left behind wondering whether to pay for the electric bill or the water bill this month? I'm trying to find some basic services... maybe with the possibility of getting a college degree and actually getting to work for more than a month or two at a time. But the system seems to be designed to keep me stuck in it. The very same skills I don't have--social skills, executive functioning, driving, filling out forms and making phone calls--seem to be the ones I need to get help with those things. And yet at the same time I am darn good at science and if I could just get a degree I might be able to work. It's so frustrating.

See, this is why I follow stories like Jarrod's. Things need to get better for disabled people. Compared to what that little boy went through, I've hardly had any problems at all, but it's all part of the same societal syndrome--we value people with disabilities less, their lives mean less, their dreams mean less, their skills are less valued. It pisses me off. The same thing that's keeping me in the welfare system, when it gets to its logical extreme, kills little children like Jarrod.

16.9 pounds. Unbelievable.

 

[jmcgladr]

From: http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/in...o_jrs_parents_colle.html#incart_story_package

HARRISBURG – Kimberly and Jarrod Tutko Sr. didn't have jobs, but they collected $3,191 per month in disability payments and food stamps.

From: http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/in...tutko_court_records.html#incart_story_package

Kimberly Tutko told PennLive in August that her children were not paychecks and that she turned down medical help for her multiple severely disabled children because the quality of the workers was low and that the hours they were available weren't convenient.

You can't get much of a lower standard of care than what THESE parents were providing! Care workers would have done a far better job - heck, they probably would have developed more of a connection to Jarrod, and shown more compassion, than his own parents.

This case sickens me, more so with every new article I read!


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[jmcgladr]

Apparently the first four children removed were from a previous marriage:

1993: Schuylkill Children and Youth Services records reflect an "Indicated finding of abuse" against Kimberly Tutko related to an incident with an older child from a previous marriage.

http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/in...o_homicide_timeline.html#incart_story_package

I read the charging documents last night - ugh. I almost lost it at the part where the dad tried to wash feces off of Jarrod's head in order to show him to the social worker. The older brother was so brave to reveal some of the stuff that went on in that house of horrors. Kind of like Bella G-C's sister.

SMH in cases where a youngster shows more maturity and honesty than the parents...

The whole thing kind of reads like a Munchausen by Proxy situation. So many kids, so many illnesses and not just your garden variety coughs and flus. Or it could be just plain abuse/neglect, very deliberate at times, like when Jarrod decreased one child's meds against doctor's orders, and when he refused to feed Jarrod Junior. A history of abuse on her end, and of medical neglect on his end, combined with a number of vulnerable kids, was a terrible sort of "perfect storm." Glad those kids are out of there.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[ontheclock]

I think it's just plain abuse/neglect, I M O.

 

[jmcgladr]

I think it's just plain abuse/neglect, I M O.

Maybe so - but so heinous, so long term and deliberate and callous. One of the worst cases I have ever read about. What was going through their minds? They seem sadistic. And yet they came from normal families, it sounds like from the cousin's interview. Hard to understand.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[ontheclock]

Yes, it's definitely beyond heinous. Beyond explanation.

 

[MissUnderstood]

These so called parents certainly looked well fed!!!!!

 

[iamnotagolem]

From: http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/in...o_jrs_parents_colle.html#incart_story_package

HARRISBURG – Kimberly and Jarrod Tutko Sr. didn't have jobs, but they collected $3,191 per month in disability payments and food stamps.

From: http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/in...tutko_court_records.html#incart_story_package

Kimberly Tutko told PennLive in August that her children were not paychecks and that she turned down medical help for her multiple severely disabled children because the quality of the workers was low and that the hours they were available weren't convenient.

This absolutely sickens me. I can't imagine what they pissed that money away on instead of providing for their children. I think we all assumed as much, but to see the actual dollar amount that they received that was meant for those children is hard to swallow.

 

[passionflower]

I have been googling and all I could find is 3 day old news on this case???http://cumberlink.com/news/opinion/...cle_0175434e-4a81-11e4-a487-1f23a3099cfd.html