RSS
Home
Montana mom says autistic son ‘waterboarded’, forced to eat his own vomit
Print
Email
RSS
Subscribe
“We trusted these people,” a weeping Tifonie Schilling told reporters outside a Montana courtroom.
The ‘people’ to whom Schilling referred were the special education teachers at Great Falls, Montana, North Middle High School, where her 14-year-old son, Garrett, was enrolled.
Garrett, who suffers from a form of autism that leaves him non-verbal, was a student in the North Middle special education program during the 2008 – 2009 school year.
“We started noticing things pretty quick after Garrett started going up to North Middle,” Schilling told Montana's News Station.
What she had begun noticing in her then 13-year-old son was a series of new, odd behaviors – behaviors that had Mrs. Schilling questioning school authorities about Garrett’s conduct.
Tifonie noted the school offered very little help, and said that during one meeting with school officials they insisted she was to blame.
As the school year came to an end, Schilling received an email from another parent of a North Middle student alerting her that the change in Garrett’s behavior may have been caused by abuse perpetrated by school staff.
With a lawyer in tow, Schilling began investigating the charges that had been levied in the email, and after meeting with “a lot of resistance,” witnesses to the alleged acts began to come forward.
According to witnesses, Garrett Schilling was being tortured by two para-professionals that had been assigned to take care of him.
Last year Julie Parish and Kristina Marie Kallies were teacher’s aides in the special needs 7th and 8th grade classroom at North Middle School. Now both face charges of assault on a minor and endangering the welfare of children.
There's a warrant out for Kallies' arrest but so far police haven't been able to find her. Parish was arrested this weekend and appeared in court today.
Witness accounts charge that Parish and Kallies would hold Garrett’s head under the water in a full kitchen sink.
“He was having water boarding-like torture done to him on a frequent basis,” Schilling told reporters. “[They were] holding his head under the water as he screamed for his mommy.”
Another student says he saw, “the teachers make [Garrett] eat his own vomit” while a substitute teacher claims Garrett was “left sitting in his own feces for approximately half a day.” Being Garrett is non-verbal he can’t confirm the allegations.
But the Schillings are not the only family pressing charges. Thus far, parents of five children (in a class of 12 students) have charged that their children were also abused.
Molly Gillis, mother of a North Middle student, says her daughter would come home from school “on numerous occasions with bite marks, bruises, burnt fingertips and missing hair.”
The Saali family claims their daughter was “hit with pens” on such a frequent basis that it would leave “welts on her neck.” The Saalis say their daughter also told them of being hit in the head with a pan.
The Pepos family says they are “more than sure” their son spent time locked in a closet. School district officials say the two women resigned after the charges were made, and if convicted could face a maximum of five and half years in prison.
The Cascade County Attorney’s Office said the investigation remains ongoing and more charges could follow.
Tifonie Schilling said the abuse likely lasted more than a year, but the effects will last a lot longer that that.
“He lives in a world now where he is constantly in fear that somebody is going to hurt him,” Tifonie told reporters, adding that his fear is so deep, they can't even bring him near the North Middle School campus.
Related Articles:
Add a Comment
