How Could You? Hall of Shame-Canada-BC Foster Parents-Child Death UPDATED and Lawsuit

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.

From Lake Errock, Canada, a “man and woman accused of inflicting horrible abuse on two foster children appeared at the Chilliwack Law Courts for a sentencing hearing Thursday (June 15). The names of the accused can’t be revealed due to a publication ban put in place to protect the identifies of the young victims, one of whom died as a result of the abuse, but the courtroom was packed with people from the small eastern Fraser Valley community of Lake Errock where the crimes took place.

The accused were foster parents to two children aged eight and 11 and the documented abuses took place between December 2020 and February 2021. Both pleaded guilty to aggravated assault and manslaughter. Crown and defence reached a joint submission seeking 10 years for manslaughter and six years for aggravated assault, served concurrently.

B.C. Provincial Judge Peter La Prairie presided over the sentencing hearing, which revealed disturbing details from a statement of facts agreed upon by Crown and defence.

The children were placed into the home on Oct. 30, 2019 and from that point on they suffered severe physical and psychological abuse that Crown prosecutor Theresa Iandorio described as deliberate and protracted. On the day it ended, the older child was left so weak from malnourishment and continued physical punishment that the simple act of putting on a t-shirt was too hard to do. Iandorio suggested the failure to do that one little thing may have led directly to his death.

On Feb. 26, 2021 the two foster children were left alone with the woman, who dragged the older one into the kitchen and threw him to the floor. She kicked the child and grabbed him around the neck, putting her full weight on him. He sat up, trying to put a shirt on, but couldn’t summon the strength to even lift his arms over his head. When the woman picked him up again, slapped him with both hands and threw him to the floor again, he couldn’t break the fall with his arms. His head hit the hardwood floor, and Iandorio said the impact was in the same area as the traumatic brain injury that left him brain-dead two days later and claimed his life on Mar. 1, 2021.

But, she added, there were so many injuries over so long a time that no one was entirely certain.

Over months and months the two children were subjected to abuse that included restraints and weapons. Iandorio listed items that were used to hit them, including a two-by-four piece of wood, a broom handle, a belt, a shoe, kitchen utensils, keys, a cell phone, a bucket, the butt end of an axe and a can of Lysol spray. They were choked, gagged, blind-folded and bound with zip ties and duct tape.

Iandorio said both children were forced to do jumping jacks, squats and other physical activities barefoot for hours on end, sometimes naked and often wearing a diaper.

“They were forced to eat their feces and vomit, and drink urine,” Iandorio said. “They were given dog food out of a can, and what they didn’t eat was taken outside for the dog. They were not given same food as others in the house, and had to watch others eat. Food was restricted as form of punishment. Sometimes the older child would go into kitchen late at night to find food and got more punishment.”

By the time he died, the older child weighed 28.8 kilograms (63.5 pounds) where a normal weight for his age would be 49.9 kg (110 pounds).

“Both kids lost weight,” she said. “Bones were visibly protruding through their skin.”

The home had four closed-circuit cameras with 16,000 video clips equaling more than 400 hours of footage. Iandorio said the man and woman abused the children separately and together and the woman even directed an older foster child and her biological children to do the same.

Iandorio said the woman and man can be seen in many clips laughing and mocking the children during the abuse.

There were murmurs and gasps in the courtroom as Iandorio read the details, and one person left sobbing.

While the man wasn’t there on the day the older child suffered the final, fatal injury, Iandorio said he was “party to the manslaughter” because he knew the woman was abusing the child, did nothing to stop it and left him alone with her. On that day, Iandorio said nearly one hour elapsed from the time the child became unresponsive to the time the woman finally called 9-1-1.

RCMP were called in after ambulance and fire crews noted the child’s extensive injuries along with inconsistencies in the woman’s story. Executing a search warrant on the day he was taken off life support, they found the two-by-four piece of wood under a couch along with used zip ties and duct tape. They also found a pair of children’s pants with duct tape around the ankles, with DNA matching the child’s.

Crown and defence expect to need more than one day to get through submissions, with Judge La Prairie likely to deliver a verdict at a later date.”

Former B.C. foster parents face sentencing for horrific child abuse case
[Saanich News 6/15/23 by Eric Welsh]

REFORM Puzzle Piece

Update:“A provincial court judge in Chilliwack, B.C., earlier this month sentenced a man and woman to 10 years in prison after they pleaded guilty to the aggravated assault and manslaughter of the fostered First Nations boy and the aggravated assault of his sister, aged eight.”

First Nations in B.C. call on minister to resign over horrific child abuse case

[CBC 6/26/23]

“Five years after an 11-year-old Indigenous boy was beaten to death by his foster parents, his five biological and foster siblings are suing the B.C. Ministry of Children and Family Development for exposing them to abuse.

The death was the subject of a landmark report in 2024 that called for a “complete overhaul” of B.C.’s child welfare system.

In separate civil lawsuits filed in B.C. Supreme Court this week, the five children’s lawyers allege that if the ministry “had screened the parents reasonably, or at all” it would have found they were unsuitable to care for the six children.

The two foster parents involved were sentenced in 2023 to 10 years in prison after pleading guilty to aggravated assault and manslaughter in the 11-year-old boy’s death and the aggravated assault of his eight-year-old sister.

The suits describe the horrific situation. All six children are identified only by initials — the boy who was killed is called “L.” None of the parents are named.

The three foster children, then aged seven to 13, were placed with their mother’s cousin and her partner in 2019. According to the lawsuits, the foster father had a criminal record and history of abusing drugs and alcohol, and the foster mother had a history of violence and problems with anger and behavioural dysregulation.

The couple also had three biological children.

Shortly after the ministry placed the three children with the foster parents, the foster mother contacted the ministry and told them she was “overwhelmed and stressed” and “asked for assistance as she could not care for all the children,” according to the claims.

The suits say the ministry did not provide the foster parents with further support or take steps to locate a new placement for the children.

The ministry last visited the foster children in July 2020, and the suits say the parents began to physically assault the foster children, including “slaps, punches, kicking, whipping, choking, gagging, binding, pulling ears, pulling hair, grabbing the throat, stomping and striking with objects.”

The foster parents also emotionally and mentally abused the foster children, including by starving them, binding them to furniture, and forcing them to exercise naked.

All three foster children were abused, but particularly two of them.

The foster parents encouraged the other children to physically and mentally abuse the two foster children.

The two children were struck by a two-by-four piece of wood, locked in a small dark closet for long periods of time, and forced to eat their own feces, vomit and dog food.

The foster parents fatally wounded L on Feb. 26, 2021, after physically assaulting him.

Much of the abuse, which the claims say amounted to torture, were captured on video by the foster parents.”

Siblings of child killed by foster parents in 2021 sue B.C. gov’t for exposing them to abuse
[Yahoo Canada 5/8/26 by CBC]