Kahn
May 23rd, 2010, 10:00 PM
When 4-year-old Ethan Stacy was reluctantly sent off to spend the summer with his mother late last month, he was in effect being given a death sentence.
The child never had a chance. He was dead within two weeks of arriving at the apartment in Layton, Utah, where his mother lived with her fiancé.
What could have been done to save him?
"I don't have a good answer for you," Layton police Lt. Garret Atkin, one of many law enforcement officers in Davis County, Utah, who are grieving for the boy who lived among them so briefly, told me.
The facts of what happened to Ethan speak for themselves:
He was living with his father, Joe G. Stacy, in Richlands, Virginia. Stacy and his estranged wife, Stephanie, were involved in divorce proceedings. The divorce was being adjudicated in Florida, where they had lived before she moved west.
Joe Stacy, in a divorce court filing last November, warned of his fears.
His estranged wife was "unstable," he wrote to the court: "The mother has abandoned the child and I'm afraid the mother will come and take him and I'll never see him again."
But the judge in the divorce case, Maura T. Smith, told The Associated Press that she never read the filing. Judge Smith said that Ethan's parents had worked out a settlement, including shared custody, and that the finalization of their divorce last month was "cut and dried."
Part of the decree was that Ethan would live with his dad during the school year, and with his mother during the summer.
The child reportedly did not want to go to Utah with her. "I did not want him to go, and he didn't want to go at all," Joe Stacy told the Salt Lake Tribune. "He kept telling me he didn't want to go."
But in late April, the divorce agreement newly in effect, the boy was put on a plane to fly to Utah with his mother.
What allegedly happened next is described in affidavits prepared by the Layton Police Department:
Ethan, his mother and her fiancé, Nathan Sloop, began living in their Layton home.
On May 5, Nathan Sloop, 31, took the 4-year-old child into a bedroom and began slapping and hitting him on the face and head, police said. Ethan's face began to swell. Police said his mother did not alert anyone or seek medical attention for her son.
Rest of this sad story here; EDHtD (http://www.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/05/20/greene.ethan.stacy/index.html?hpt=C2)
The child never had a chance. He was dead within two weeks of arriving at the apartment in Layton, Utah, where his mother lived with her fiancé.
What could have been done to save him?
"I don't have a good answer for you," Layton police Lt. Garret Atkin, one of many law enforcement officers in Davis County, Utah, who are grieving for the boy who lived among them so briefly, told me.
The facts of what happened to Ethan speak for themselves:
He was living with his father, Joe G. Stacy, in Richlands, Virginia. Stacy and his estranged wife, Stephanie, were involved in divorce proceedings. The divorce was being adjudicated in Florida, where they had lived before she moved west.
Joe Stacy, in a divorce court filing last November, warned of his fears.
His estranged wife was "unstable," he wrote to the court: "The mother has abandoned the child and I'm afraid the mother will come and take him and I'll never see him again."
But the judge in the divorce case, Maura T. Smith, told The Associated Press that she never read the filing. Judge Smith said that Ethan's parents had worked out a settlement, including shared custody, and that the finalization of their divorce last month was "cut and dried."
Part of the decree was that Ethan would live with his dad during the school year, and with his mother during the summer.
The child reportedly did not want to go to Utah with her. "I did not want him to go, and he didn't want to go at all," Joe Stacy told the Salt Lake Tribune. "He kept telling me he didn't want to go."
But in late April, the divorce agreement newly in effect, the boy was put on a plane to fly to Utah with his mother.
What allegedly happened next is described in affidavits prepared by the Layton Police Department:
Ethan, his mother and her fiancé, Nathan Sloop, began living in their Layton home.
On May 5, Nathan Sloop, 31, took the 4-year-old child into a bedroom and began slapping and hitting him on the face and head, police said. Ethan's face began to swell. Police said his mother did not alert anyone or seek medical attention for her son.
Rest of this sad story here; EDHtD (http://www.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/05/20/greene.ethan.stacy/index.html?hpt=C2)