Disabled son 'sounded tired' but never told her of abuse he suffered

HAMILTON–The mother of a mentally disabled man says she talked to her son three times on the phone, unaware he was being held and tortured in a filthy attic apartment.

Though he sounded "tired," she didn't know that her 22-year-old son, who has the mental capacity of a 12- to-15-year-old, was allegedly being beaten with pipes, forced to eat feces and burned over much of his body with a hair iron.

The man, who cannot be identified due to a court order, was near death from toxic shock when police found him Saturday in the downtown triplex on Aurora St.

"They burned his skin all over his body ... The infection from the burns became toxic, and he was also very dehydrated," the victim's 47-year-old mother said from Fort McMurray, Alta., where she works in an oil sands project. "His nose was broken, and his eye socket smashed. His skull was fractured, he has a big wound on his head and he had teeth knocked out."

The woman cannot be identified because of a Hamilton court's publication ban on her son's identity.

His mother said she talked on the phone with her son almost weekly. About three weeks ago, she said he phoned her from an unknown number and told her he had been beaten up, but he was staying with friends who were caring for him.

She called that number during the following two weeks and each time her son was put on the line, she said. On Saturday, police told her he had been held captive and tortured at least three weeks. He was also forced to turn over bank information and money was withdrawn from his account, police said.

"He had sounded really tired, but I didn't think anything of it because his seizures would leave him tired," his mother said.

He was released from hospital yesterday afternoon, police said.

The victim, who has severe epilepsy, had been living on his own in Hamilton with help from a social worker, said his mother. He was born in Peterborough and lived with her near Oshawa until age 10, when he became a ward of the state.

"I had to give up all my parental rights to get him the help he needed," she said, weeping on the phone. "I had been trying to get him help for a long time and it was the only way I could get him help."

After a short stint in foster care, he was sent to a Hamilton-area group home for mentally disabled youth, where he lived until age 18. He was under supervised care in Kitchener for a short time, then decided to move on his own to Hamilton.

"It makes me sick to my stomach to think that he was probably screaming and crying for help, and nobody helped him," she said.

The woman said she is flying back to Ontario within days, when she will see her son for the first time since giving him up 12 years ago.

Police have charged Stanley Brown, 30, Nathaniel Jug, 22, Dakota Thompson, 20, all of Hamilton, and a 17-year-old male from Port Colbourne with aggravated assault, aggravated sexual assault, forcible confinement, and robbery.

www.thestar.com/News/GTA/article/590461