TORONTO, Canada — A mother is offended and a community is in shock after an anonymous letter was sent to a family telling them to euthanize their autistic son.
CityNews reports that Karla Begley’s son, Max, was diagnosed with severe autism when he was about two years old. He’s 13 years old now and often stays at his grandparents’ home during the summer. The family says the only incident they ever had there happened four years ago when Max threw a ball over a neighbor’s fence. “It came back shredded, like somebody cut it up into ribbons and threw it back,” said Karla.
In this latest incident, Karla says they received a letter that read in part, “That noise he makes when he is outside is dreadful, it scares the hell out of my normal children.”
Karla says the anonymous author also told the family to donate Max’s “unretarted” body parts to science because he’s not good for anything else.
“I really don’t think it was a mother because a mother could never, never write that stuff about a child,” said Karla.
Police are investigating the note, and say they’ve forwarded it to the attorney’s office. “Obviously it’s a concern for anyone that would read it, for us though; it takes that next level in terms of determining whether there is an offense in here or not,” says Dave Selby, the spokesperson for the Durham Regional Police.
Investigators say they’ll determine their next move when they decide if the letter warrants any charges.
