How Could You? Hall of Shame-Thy Chan case-Child Death

This will be an archive of heinous actions by those involved in child welfare, foster care and adoption. We forewarn you that these are deeply disturbing stories that may involve sex abuse, murder, kidnapping and other horrendous actions.

A troubling 1997 case has emerged.

From Oxford, Massachusetts, a “severely disabled teenager died in the custody of foster parents who are at the center of a horrific child abuse investigation that was hidden for decades.

Thy Chan, 16, was living in the state-licensed foster home of Ray and Susan Blouin  in Oxcford[sic] when Ray Blouin called 911 for help on August 17th, 1997.

Jessica French was another foster child in the home — one of forty who cycled through — and often tasked with taking care of Chan and another disabled girl. She remembers her being ill.

“Somebody took her temperature and it was sky high, so they called the ambulance,” she told 5 Investigates.

“She ended up being stuck in bed she was so sick,” she added. “They waited to long to see what was wrong.”

Chan died from viral encaphalitis a few days after she was rushed to UMass Medical Center, according to her death certificate. Her foster mother, Sue Blouin, was a nurse there.

Her death raises the question of whether she needed medical help earlier. She was sick for at least two days before that ambulance was called.

French remembers Chan was crying and appeared to be in pain.

“When you look back at what happened to Thy what goes through your mind?” 5 Investigates’ reporter Kathy Curran asked Chan.

“Pure neglect. No compassion,” French said. “I feel like she was taken into that home as…more money, there are other kids who can take care of her, we’ll make the money off her. We can take her in,” French said.

One of Chan’s teachers at Oxford’s Chaffee elementary school said school staff filed multiple reports of suspected neglect and abuse involving other children in the Blouins’ home.

She’s still haunted by what happened months before Chan died when, on the last day of school, she helped drop her off at the Blouins’ home.

“We unstrapped her wheelchair and took her to the ramp. She took all for limbs and like stopped at the opening of the van and cried that she did not want to get off the van,” said the former teacher, who did not want to be identified.

“How hard was that for you?” Curran asked.

“I cried, and then to find out that that was the last time I was going to see her,” she said. “It’s heartbreaking to know that you have these children that were removed from bad circumstances and ultimately put in worse circumstances.”

During the past two years, 5 Investigates has uncovered thousands of pages of records documenting alleged neglect and abuse of many other foster children in the Blouin’s home for years.

The state even found evidence of abuse, but kept placing kids there.

Last year, Sue, Ray and Sue’s former boyfriend were charged with sexually assaulting two of the children in the wake of our reporting, but survivors of this home are frustrated by the system that failed them and still traumatized by the horrific abuse, including some children being locked in dog cages for hours, they say occurred inside the walls of the Blouin’s home.

There was a small service held for Chan at a Worcester funeral home. Several of the foster children and her biological parents attended. Records show the Blouin’s had Chan cremated. Her remains were released to Ray Blouin.

“People who looked at them as these perfect angel people rescuing kids, they weren’t who they made everyone think they were,” French said.”

Foster child died in troubled Oxford foster home in 1997
[WVCB 01/16/2020 by Kathy Curran]

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