“I’ve terminated the life of my autistic child”
“’I’ve terminated the life of my autistic child.’”
So Jose Stable said to the police who responded to his call to report that his son, 12-year-old Ulysses Stable, was dead. As reported in the November 23rd New York Times, Ulysses was found naked in the bathtub “with his throat slit from under his left ear to the middle of the throat” early Wednesday morning. Ulysses’ mother did not live with him and his father had had custody since Ulysses was two years old. Stable home-schooled his son; caseworkers had been to visit them and seen Ulysses as recently as last week. According to Sharman Stein of the Administration for Children’s Services, there had been a “recent allegation of neglect against the father” and a report that Ulysses was not attending school regularly; the agency had sought custody of Ulysses in Family Court earlier this year, and had “agreed to provide supervision” under a court order instead.
Ulysses, who weighed about 280 pounds, did not speak much and seemed “inseparable” from his father, according to neighbors.
Stable, who was unemployed, has been charged with second-degree murder, manslaughter and criminal possession of a weapon. Records indicate that he had been arrested “several times” previously for assault and possession of a criminal weapon. The Times reports that “two large kitchen knives and a meat cleaver” were found and that it appeared that they had been partially wiped off.
As reported in the November 22nd Newsday.com, Stable referred to his son as a “burden” to police.
It is Thanksgiving here and I will be thinking of Ulysses all day, and for many days to come.
23 opinions for “I’ve terminated the life of my autistic child”
David N. Andrews MEd (12-2006)
Nov 23, 2006 at 7:10 am
I am shocked, horrified and sickened by this.
Can’t think of anything else to say at this point, except maybe … when will this killing end?
mumkeepingsane
Nov 23, 2006 at 10:38 am
Oh, I can’t think of anything to say. This is so very very sad. Something needs to be done to stop parents from killing their children.
Kristina Chew, PhD
Nov 23, 2006 at 11:31 am
Horror and a pit in my stomach as I read this.
mothersvox
Nov 23, 2006 at 12:27 pm
Just read the Times and posted about this over at Austism’s Edges.
My response is similar. I am heartbroken.
And I am angry.
How many autistic children will be murdered by their parents before we demand good schools, good family supports, and respite care for caregivers?
Jose is described in the Times as “unemployed.” Given that he was homeschooling a severely challenged child, it seems rather odd to describe him as “unemployed.” He was working 24/7, he just wasn’t being compensated.
None of this excuses murder, but I can’t look at this without looking at the totality of this situtation. If it is difficult for me to find a school, and caregivers, and respite with my very mildly impaired Sweet M, I can’t imagine what it was like for Jose and Ulysses. I can’t even pretend to imagine.
charlene port
Nov 23, 2006 at 2:21 pm
I too have a moderately affected nonverbal autistic son in which the schools and neighbors harrass. Of course the midwest has been known to be narrow minded with disabilities. Anyway if I am ever on my death bed, I want my son dead because I want no government liar SOB drugging him or tieing him up somewhere. Basically I pray to outlive my own son. You all think this is a joke it is not. I am sick and tired of the judgemental jokes. I ask for help killing animals and they think he is being abused in my home. He rubs genitalia on furntiure I am accused of sexual abuse. WE now have pro lifers doing there speeches yet when the child is born, the mother is completely on her own. I have a neighbor who calls us retarded and wanted to put up a sign no retardos allowed. Yet when I see judge Billings for a restraining order, I am totally ignored!!! The US of america being a decent country is a joke!
zilari
Nov 23, 2006 at 2:37 pm
There’s no excuse for murder, period. There are parents who murder nonautistic children as well.
Kassiane
Nov 23, 2006 at 4:50 pm
More blood on the hands of Autism Speaks. It’s been nothing but murders since they formed.
Nothing excuses this. NOTHING. But had CPS been called, no one would have listened anyway…
mothersvox
Nov 23, 2006 at 5:16 pm
I agree — nothing excuses murder.
And you already know what I think about social circumstances that provide almost no support to parents caring for an autistic child; such circumstance would increase the prevalence of mental health disorders in those parents.
Ballastexistenz
Nov 23, 2006 at 7:03 pm
Don’t kill your child. I’ve dealt with attempted murder and I’ve dealt with being abused in institutions and tied down and so forth. The difference between being tied down, abuse, and death, is that you can’t ever escape death. A person can have a life after abuse, most people do. I’d far rather be abused and even institutionalized and survive it (it happens, all the time) than killed beforehand by someone who assumed that I could never be happy after that, that I would never get out after that, etc. Saying you would kill someone to “protect” them from that fate spits in the face of everyone who has survived that fate and somehow, by their own power or the power of others, gotten out and made a good life for ourselves.
David N. Andrews MEd (12-2006)
Nov 24, 2006 at 1:40 am
Charlene,
Whatever you say, the law is pretty damn clear: the killing of anyone without just cause is wrong. As a ‘just cause’, legal execution of a death sentence on a prisoner is fraught with many ethical problems… ‘because the kid is autistic’ is not a ‘just cause’ that even deserves to fly.
Killing children is wrong, period.
Doesn’t mean that I don’t empathise with the situation you and your child are in. I think that - instead of funding un-necessary and illegal wars - politicians should think more about making a difference in the US, the UK and in Canada… and where-ever else there is a government (basically, throughout the world).
But the situation is not down to the autistic child. The situation is down to intransigence on the parts of the authorities. And I’m damned if I’m going to accept that it is ‘okay’ or ‘understandable’ for anyone to punish an autistic child because of what the authorities refuse to do to support the child in his/her needs.
David N. Andrews MEd (12-2006)
Nov 24, 2006 at 1:41 am
Kassianne: “More blood on the hands of Autism Speaks. It’s been nothing but murders since they formed.”
Yeh, kinda odd, isn’t it?!
Along the Spectrum » Sadness
Nov 24, 2006 at 2:19 am
[…] I can barely believe what I read tonight from my fellow bloggers. […]
Shawn
Nov 24, 2006 at 2:33 am
Charlene,
You don’t need to choose between death and abuse. There are other choices and other outcomes.
I’ve found that when the choices before me seem rather dismal, it’s usually because I’m not seeing very clearly.
I pray that you can see a way find other choices.
Kristina Chew, PhD
Nov 24, 2006 at 3:10 am
Charlene, Thank you for writing here—-I know what it is like to feel so tired and desperate and just sad that things do not look good, that (as Shawn puts it), choices seem dismal. But yes, there is a completely different choice to take, to do what we can to help our children live the best lives they can, to live. And I can only hope that what happened to Ulysses Stable can help us to create a better world so that his death and that of too many others does not, need not, happen again.
Maria
Nov 28, 2006 at 6:24 pm
There were murders, murder/suicides, neglect and abandonment involving autistic people and their parents long before Autism Speaks was formed. Let us not attack other parents and their organizations but try instead to get people the support they need.
Rainsmom
Dec 11, 2006 at 5:21 pm
This is so horrible. WE NEED TO HAVE SUPPORT for ALL families. Let people know it is ok to ask for help. They do not have to go through it alone. Caring for the autistic is challenging but it should not come to murder to get peoples attention. EPEDEMIC!
Kassiane
Dec 11, 2006 at 7:33 pm
Yeah.
Epidemic of selfish parents. We’ve been here a looooong time. Parents didn’t USED to think it was acceptable to kill their kid. So why the epidemic of murdering mommies and daddies?
Is it the plague rhetoric? YES! I think that’s a good hypothesis! The epidemic of hysterical language caused the killings!
wow am I good…
Kristina Chew, PhD
Dec 12, 2006 at 12:59 am
Reading about one parent killng one child is beyond horrible—reading about it again, and again, and again, leaves me wordless. I don’t think enough can ever be done.
autismgal
Dec 30, 2006 at 10:22 pm
that is horrid! And the tragic thing is that in most of my research I have come across the fact that murderers of autistic kids typically receive less severe sentences then the murderers of NT kids!
Kristina Chew, PhD
Dec 31, 2006 at 2:07 am
Autismgal: If there is any information or articles that you’d ever like to share here, it would be more than appreciated. Thanks for sharing this here.
Phil Schwarz
Mar 31, 2007 at 11:47 pm
Joel Smith (http://thiswayoflife.org) has compiled a list of murders of autistic children by their parents, and of the sentences they received.
electra cotsiopoulos
Sep 27, 2007 at 12:23 am
ím a single mom of two children: 6 and 4 almost 5 who is autistic; both children are victims of maltreatment, neglect, and abuse as of right now. Family Court does not listen what being going on and instruct me to comply w/ visits. today my son ia suffering after comming back from overnight at father’s home. Father fits a sociopath profile, he is dangerous to his children, he has no concious, and does only have interest focus in have his vehicleto hurt me: the children. I’m touched and hurt by this murder. DCFand Child Prot. Team are just fillers, they do not perform whatsoever, in my case I have felt intimidated by my speacking up of facts; this people is responsible for many children’s livwes and abuse with out no concious themselves.
Kristina Chew, PhD
Sep 27, 2007 at 12:58 am
Electra, more than glad to know your son is home with you tonight. Are your children mostly with you?
Thank you for telling us about them here.
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