In the wake of the alleged attempted killing of a four-year-old girl with cerebral palsy by her mother, Kellie A. Waremburg, earlier this week—and of Karen McCarron’s killing of her three-year-old autistic daughter, Katherine McCarron on May 13th, I would like to join Stephen Drake of Not Dead Yet in calling for restraint and responsibility in media coverage of this case. As Stephen writes in a press release today,
We sincerely hope this allegation turns out to be untrue. And we are all hoping that the young girl pulls through this medical crisis.
But if it is true, it’s time to demand that the media and parent “advocates” behave with more restraint and responsibility than they have in the coverage of the alleged murder of 3-year-old Katie McCarron by her mother.
Coverage of the alleged murder of Katie McCarron has been dominated by discussions of autism, poor support services, and an alarming parade of parents seemingly eager to tell the public they’ve felt like killing their own kids with disabilities.
I wish also to second Stephen Drake’s request that
Articles about the alleged murder of a person with a disability should not contain more about the disability than about the victim as a person. More space should be devoted to grieving family members than sympathetic friends of the accused killer.
Media coverage of Katie McCarron’s killing was dominated by reports about the “toll” of raising a child with a disability on family members, rather than on what the disabled child herself experiences. While, as Stephen Drake writes—
Countless friends of Karen McCarron’s talked about her “dedication” as a mother, glossing over the fact that Katie had lived apart from her mother
for 20 months and was only with her ten days until she was allegedly killed
—little, if not nothing, was said about the “beautiful, precious, and happy” little girl who (in her paternal grandfather Mike McCarron’s words) was Katie McCarron.
Over-emphasis in media coverage on the “suffering” of family members who “put up” with a disabled child’s needs results in a rush of sympathy going to those “heroic” family members—–not to the disabled person who truly is suffering, and is all the more made to feel that they have done something wrong—-that they have caused their “poor” relatives’ suffering. Media coverage about Katie McCarron tended too often to emphasize the difficulties of raising an autistic child, as if to suggest that Katie was hardly the lovely little girl she was—that she was the problem.
It is the terrible attitudes our society has towards the disabled that are a big, big problem.
Here is an analogy: Say that you have an elderly and close relative who is in a psychiatric hospital. Say that some other of your relatives are quick to say that some other relative is a “saint” for having put up with this “trying” person for so many years, while giving just a bit more than lip service to what it must be like to be old, feeble, physically disabled, incontinent, seriously depressed, and in an institution?
Who is suffering more?
Why do we blame the victim?
The full text of Stephen Drake’s press release appears below.
For Immediate Release:
June 22, 2006
Contact: Stephen Drake
708-209-1500, ext. 29
Disability Advocates Call for Restraint and Responsibility in Murder Coverage
Today, sad and alarming news emerged from Tazewell County.
The Peoria Journal-Star reported that Kellie Waremburg has been
charged with the attempted murder of her daughter, who is four years
old and has cerebral palsy. The police have released no details
and have acted responsibly in limiting their comments to the press
at this time.
We sincerely hope this allegation turns out to be untrue. And we are
all hoping that the young girl pulls through this medical crisis.
But if it is true, it’s time to demand that the media and parent
“advocates” behave with more restraint and responsibility than they
have in the coverage of the alleged murder of 3-year-old Katie McCarron
by her mother.
Coverage of the alleged murder of Katie McCarron has been dominated
by discussions of autism, poor support services, and an alarming
parade of parents seemingly eager to tell the public they’ve felt like
killing their own kids with disabilities.
In a May 18 article, Peoria Journal-Star columnist Phil Luciano quoted
a friend of Karen McCarron as saying: (talking about having a child with
autism) “It’s like a death, because a child you had in mind has died,”
and “I don’t condone what she did,” the friend says. ” … (But) you have
those moments. And at the last moment, she snapped.”
On that same day, Peoria Journal-Star reporter Karen McDonald quoted
a well-known autism advocate, Dr. David Ayoub in regard to the alleged
murder: “This is a story that’s been played over and over again. Homicide,
suicide. The families just don’t have the support.”
On May 23, columnist Phil Luciano wrote yet another column on the
McCarron case in which he quoted Christopher M. Kennedy, legislative
director of the Autism Society of Illinois, who said, in part: “Karen’s feelings
of isolation and despair are the norm, not the exception.”
Countless friends of Karen McCarron’s talked about her “dedication” as
a mother, glossing over the fact that Katie had lived apart from her mother
for 20 months and was only with her ten days until she was allegedly killed.
It should also be noted that the Copley News Service, in an article in the
Springfield Journal-Register, decided to refer to the charges against to the
death of Katie McCarron as “an alleged mercy killing,” which was then
picked up and disseminated in a story by UPI that appeared in the
Washington Times.
On June 9, the Chicago Tribune published an article by reporter Meg
McSherry Breslin about the McCarron case. The title was “Daughter’s
murder puts focus on toll of autism,” making the thrust of the article all
too clear. More space was devoted in the article to sympathetic
comments about Karen McCarron and negative comments about autism
itself than to descriptions of the victim or to comments from deeply
grieving family members, who are appalled by the press coverage and
the comments coming from so-called “advocates.” This article was
no reprieve for most of the McCarron family from the media assault on
three-year-old Katie, although her accused killer might have found
some comfort.
Lauri Hislope, on the executive board of the ANSWERS group in
Peoria (a parent support group) said this about Karen McCarron:
“…we understand how she got to hat place. We’ve all been either at
that place or near it, but by the grace of God, we chose differently.”
Christopher Kennedy of the Autism Society of Illinois weighed in again,
saying that parents “have communicated the feelings of despair and
isolation so many of us have felt at different times in our lives with
autism. … We cannot ignore the bigger picture and the context within
which this and other such acts occur.”
No, we cannot ignore the broader context if we have a new attempted
murder on our hands. Services and supports have been what they’ve
been for quite awhile in Tazewell County and other parts of Illinois.
Services didn’t suddenly get worse between the alleged murder of
Katie McCarron and this newest incident.
We’d suggest that what has changed is a barrage of irresponsible media
coverage and equally irresponsible advocacy. Researcher Dick Sobsey
has documented an increase in the murders of children by their parents
in Canada in relation to well-publicized and sympathetic coverage of the
murders of children with disabilities. Articles about the alleged murder
of a person with a disability should not contain more about the disability
than about the victim as a person. More space should be devoted to
grieving family members than sympathetic friends of the accused killer.
The Autism Society of Illinois and the ANSWERS group should rethink
their strategy as well. Mike McCarron, Katie McCarron’s grandfather,
has written that he feels abandoned and betrayed by “advocates.” To
him and his family, the parade of “horror stories” about autism are offensive
and painful. These groups need to ask just for whom they are supposed
to be advocating. Is it the grieving McCarron family? They don’t feel
supported. Is it children like Katie? Then why do they blame the victim?
Or is it Karen McCarron, the alleged killer?
These groups might also ask, what will be accomplished by saying that
murderous feelings toward disabled children are common? Will this
increase the acceptance of children with disabilities in our schools and
neighborhoods? Or will the public conclude that kids *that* horrible are
better locked up? What is the end result when parents say feelings
of murder or desperation are “the norm?” How will it affect the small
percentage of parents struggling with the despair? Will it give them
strength or help them leap off the abyss?
The media in Illinois also needs to reflect on how it covers murders
of people with disabilities. McCarron was not covered with the same
degree of professionalism shown toward other murders. There was
a different standard at work. This needs to stop before the predictable
consequences are felt by any more children and families.
Not Dead Yet is a national disability rights group that organizes opposition
in the disability community to legalized assisted suicide, euthanasia and
other forms of medical killing. Not Dead Yet also speaks out when accused
killers of people with disabilities are treated more sympathetically than
killers of nondisabled people are.
For more information:
Not Dead Yet
7521 Madison St.
Forest Park, IL 60130
708-209-1500
http://www.notdeadyet.org
[...] I have posted often about Katherine McCarron—a beautiful, precious, and happy little girl. Katie died on May 13th; her mother, Karen McCarron, allegedly killed her. I have noted how much of the media coverage surrounding Katie’s killing focused on the “toll” of raising an autistic child and about how difficult, and devastating, it is to be the parent of an autistic child. (See this earlier post, Let’s Not Blame the Victim: A Call for Restraint and Responsibility.) Raising an autistic child can, it was suggested, lead a parent to conclude that one’s child would be better off dead than alive and autistic. (See this earlier post, Karen McCarron, Alison Tepper Singer, and misplaced compassion.) [...]
[...] Recent reports have revealed that Kellie A. Waremburg, mother of four-year-old Lexus Walker who has cerebral palsy, gave her daughter a “drug cocktail including phenobarbital and 100 crushed sleeping pills to get her “to go to sleep and not wake up,” and threatened to kill herself with a knife,” according to today’s Peoria Journal Star. Lexus Fuller had to be fed through a tube, is blind and mentally retarded, and uses a wheelchair, and “was in serious condition Thursday at OSF Saint Francis Medical Center in Peoria; prosecutor Kirk Schoenbein said the toddler had “‘taken a turn for the best overnight.’” [...]
Oh yes. We complain.
We can also whine, b*tch, moan, and be ‘noncompliant’. And I for one am PROUD to be ‘noncompliant’.
In Peoria the PJS was called the Urinal Star. Can’t imagine why…
Kassiane, I’m posting on the latest from the PJStar.com—note how only the disability advocates are said to “complain.”
Kassiane, that is also the hospital that Katie was born in.
Balanced my heiney.
They’ll get Patty Floyd or Lauri “we resent our middle child so much we sent him away” Hislope or Susan Grimm or one of those folks to say “but its sttiiiiill so harrrrrd. We need SERVICES and then these things wouldn’t HAPPEN”.
To which I say the oh so mature “EFFING WAAAAH”. My parents (and I come from a VERY dysfunctional family, abusive etc) managed to not kill me, and not only am I autistic, but I had a tentative Rett dx for awhile (turns out that genetically they were right) but I also had childhood onset bipolar, seizures, and ADHHHHHHHHHHHHHHD. Yet, here I am still alive, 20 years after (ignored) diagnosis.
If I need to call them, I’ll do it. My roommate swears I’m a fire elf-they don’t want to be on the other end of the phone if I’m not happy with them. Baaaaad temper here.
And Mr. McCarron, thank you for the report. Lexus is in the hospital I was born in, I heard…good hospital. They make appropriate referrals too, always important for after care. Thanks for keeping us up to date. And I owe you an email re: the ribbons…I get the honor and priviledge of going to the store and deciding WHICH pink ribbon to get…I’d rather it was an unnecessary honor.
So balanced means imbalanced—-thanks for the update, Mike. More than a few thoughts and prayers here.
Lexus Fuller’s condition has been upgraded to “fair”, it sounds like she will live. That is wonderful news, nothing else has been said about her so far.
Mike, Kristina and all,
thank you.
Sad to say, I’ve had a lot of practice at this. I’ve been doing the work I do for close to ten years now. I don’t remember it ever being quite so hard emotionally.
The criticisms of the coverage, the ANSWERS group, and the Autism Society of IL may be going very public. When I sent out the press release, I emailed copies to editors, reporters, and columnists at the Chicago Trib and the newspapers in Springfield and Peoria. I faxed copies on letterhead to their newsrooms as well.
Today, I received a call from the lead reporter from the Peoria paper. She didn’t appear to be real enthused or sympathetic to what I wrote, but the new and ugly reality makes it hard to ignore. So it looks like she’s going to do a story.
Based on my years of experience with the media, I don’t have high expectations for the article. She’s made it clear it will be “balanced” and to me that means it will probably slant the way of previous coverage. That’s what usually happens, but there has been a surprise or two in the past (due to my pessimistic nature, all “surprises” are of the pleasant variety).
But at the very least, the criticisms will be public and placed in this new context of a very disturbing and tragic attack on a little girl.
[...] Well, there’ve been a couple of recent Autism Hub posts about people not taking responsibility for their own actions. (See Autism Vox and Ballastexistenz.) [...]
Thank _you_ Stephen and everyone for your comments—-it’s truly an honor to try to help make a small difference in this world.
It is so important that the pressure is kept up on people who have made these insensitive and hurtful comments in the wake of Katie’s murder. Thanks for posting about this again Kristina. Stephen’s press release is superb. I truly hope that people will pay attention and respond to it.
Mr McCarron, I echo your wishes for this poor child.
All I can say is “amen” to Kristina’s post, Stephens initiative, and Grandpa Mike’s comments. You are all wonderful.
Stephen, thank you for your vigilance in trying to protect those with any type of disability.
It is very difficult for me to contemplate the loss of another little one. I can only pray, pray with all of my heart that this little girl can pull through. I don’t know her name but I am trying to project every once of energy I have to her hospital bed. She is trying to cling to life and I want so dearly to be there with her.
Mike McCarron
Katie’s Grandfather
Kristina,
Thank you so much for keeping this discussion alive with all the other things you need to keep juggling. I can’t tell you how thrilled I am to have the release posted here. It will be up on our site, but it is so heartening to see it here – on a site of a parent.
As I told someone in one of my many phone conversations today, it really shouldn’t be *me* and NDY having to take this stand. In a just world, in a world that made any kind of sense at all, it would be the advocacy groups that would make any action by me unnecessary – except to voice my support and approval.
There *are* supporters in the disability community here. I’m slowly trying to lay groundwork for building resistance to what we’ve come to expect from the ANSWERS “support” group and the Autism Society of Illinois.
I’ve been quiet, but I’ve been busy here.
Thank you (and Mike and Kevin, etc.) for letting me know there are parents out there who don’t approve of the all-too-ugly face of autism “advocacy.”
–Stephen