What Happened to Scarlett?
Did Xuan Peng drown her 4-year old daughter, Scarlett? Today’s Toronto Sun notes about the first day of Peng’s trial:
In his opening address to the jury, Crown attorney Joshua Levy said Xuan Peng “deliberately drowned” her daughter, Scarlett, in the bathtub of the ensuite bathroom of their Rosebank Dr. home on July 12, 2004.
The tragedy unfolded only hours after Peng and her husband, David Chen, were told by Scarborough pediatrician Dr. James Leung that surgery wouldn’t help their only child, Levy told the jury. Peng, 36, has pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder.The parents were told by Leung in May 2004 that Scarlett had been diagnosed with autism and would need “constant supervision.”
In an earlier report, Scarlett’s having autism was unclear—-regardless, this is sad and terrible.
On an equally sad note, a Trois Rivieres mother has pleaded guilty to handcuffing her six-year-old autistic son to a chair or a “ring in the bathroom” to control his behavior, today’s CJAD (Montreal) notes. Surely we can do better by autistic children and by parents who don’t know what to do?
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POSTED IN: Crime, Legal Issues
7 opinions for What Happened to Scarlett?
KimJ
Nov 21, 2007 at 12:09 pm
I really don’t like the point of view that parents are abusing their kids out of ignorance. I was ignorant of autism 5 years ago and I didn’t kill my kid or restrain him.
Sometimes I did stuff that parents do to neurotypical children that didn’t work on my autistic son. LIke spanking, scolding, withholding treats to get him to speak. I got a wrist leash but realized that I couldn’t use it without hurting him. I quickly realized that those tactics didn’t work and instead of escalating, I learned to adapt.
I couldn’t afford software for PECs and didn’t always find helpful books like Social Stories. So, I made my own.
It just really bothers me to blame these deaths and injuries on “Lack of support” or “lack of knowledge”. We were terribly isolated, geographically and emotionally, from family, friends or help.
Kristina Chew, PhD
Nov 21, 2007 at 12:29 pm
In the case of Karen McCarron, there were some articles about “lack of support” and the stress and strain on families—-but there are some things one does not do. And that view appears in this article from Quincy, IL:
We’ve had some really tough and awful times–that times the police stopped me (mentioned in the previous post) was a real low point. But we got through it.
Karen
Nov 21, 2007 at 3:28 pm
I agree w/ KimJ. There are things you just don’t do. Period. I realize there are lots of complex factors involved, but people shouldn’t harm their children! I don’t think there is a parent out there who hasn’t struggled in some way and most of them do not harm their children.
Patrick
Nov 21, 2007 at 3:36 pm
I have to laugh at the wrist leash…. When I was very young I was a runner…. My parents got a upper torso harness for me, much like those used to restrain dogs. I have no ill feelings or memories about it, I know it was for my own safety, and I lived.
Leanne
Nov 21, 2007 at 4:12 pm
Patrick,
I’m laughing with you because I bought one of those harnesses for my son when his running was at its worst. I was never able to bring myself to put it on him though. I think if we didn’t live in the country or I didn’t have such great help from my husband I would have felt I had no other choice.
As to the original post. There are some things a parent just shouldn’t do. I don’t care how terrible they think autism is. You don’t harm your child and you certainly don’t kill them.
Regan
Nov 21, 2007 at 5:44 pm
There are people who, for whatever reason they use to justify, explain or excuse it, kill or hurt their children. Some of them are ignorant, some desperate, some are mentally ill, some have chemical dependencies, and some are just bad people. It is always horrific.
We often talk about the parents, but the people that I think about are those children and what feelings, pain and terror they must have when the persons who they depend on the most in the world do these terrible things to them.
Surely we must do better.
Christopher DeGroot’s Parents Plead Guilty
Nov 22, 2007 at 6:22 pm
[…] I wrote about what happened to 4-year-old Scarlett and a commenter posted about Shellay Ward—–and here is another sad, and terrible, […]
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