Parents Behaving Badly

41 opinions for Katherine Hatten and Thaddeus Bechtel Starve Four-Month-Old Daniel Bechtel to Death

• Winter
  Apr 29, 2007 at 5:50 am

  I often wonder where the extended family is in cases like this. Someone has to know that so-and-so is mentally ill in some way and stop by to check on the kids… no grandma/grandpa? Aunts? Uncles? Neighbors? No one saw what was going on here? Hard to believe… but I am surprised every day.

• Tamera
  Apr 29, 2007 at 11:35 am

  Complete losers who deserve to be shut away for as long as possible. There is absolutely no reason for a baby to starve, especially when the parents have the money for a computer and internet access. Poor, poor, poor little thing. I can’t imagine how miserable his short life was. Hopefully his siblings have a chance at a better life.

• shauna olsen
  Apr 29, 2007 at 9:19 pm

  God help me it seems almost daily that more and more children are suffering so damn bad at the hands of those who are supposed to protect, love and raise them—their own parents. I wish I could understand why…but to be honest what is there to understand except a baby had to suffer the pain of starvation, neglect and no love along with the siblings as well. I hope these two losers realize that the most important persons in their lives was taken away from them (thank God) by child services because they were too stupid to take care of what mattered most–their kids I really want to hear their lame ass excuses for this, should be oh so interesting!

• EchoedMemory
  Apr 30, 2007 at 3:02 am

  This legal system needs to adopt the “an eye for an eye” method. Seriously. Starve them. Lock them in a rat-infested cell and literally starve them to death. After you do something to a child, your rights are thrown out the window and you are no longer a human being in the eyes of the law or society. If it was up to me, that’s exactly what would happen.

• Robot B9
  Apr 30, 2007 at 3:02 am

  And for their crimes they will get a clean cell and 3 meals a day. A new definition of irony.

• liz, mom of 2
  Apr 30, 2007 at 5:18 am

  the only fitting punishment would be for her to be starved and beaten to death. her extended family is probably alot like her, they usually are in these cases and after all, have you ever had a baby that long and family does not come to see him/her? and if they did and did not report it, they must be insane. sadly these kids probably had no one. Our legal system is WAY to lenient and the sad thing i heard about prison is that alot of prisoners to not get hurt/terrorised anymore by fellow inmates because alot of the other inmates are there for abusing children too now!

• Heather Boyles
  Apr 30, 2007 at 1:44 pm

  There are a lot of things you all don’t know that will come out later. You see, I am a friend of kaite that is like her mother. She is not mentally ill, and there were doctors that were involved in daniel’s mendical care. Wic was also involved. She followed their instructions and she. She put Daniel in his swing and fell asleep. She woke up in the early morning hours to a dead baby. She tried her best. As for her housekeeping skills she never had a home. She had a mother on meth and lived from place to place almost on a weekly basis. I know she went ot the dr’s because she was taken by myself and a friend. THere are two sides to every story and before we know facts, we shouldn’t accuse.

• alalee
  Apr 30, 2007 at 2:20 pm

  Always gotta be someone crawling out of the woodwork to cry an excuse. Many people overcome their pasts and move on to a better future - having a methed up mom is not an excuse for not exercising basic sanitary conditions. If she had involvement from public services, then she could have asked for help (I know they offer it) on teaching her to clean and care for her children. They’re called HOME AIDES.

• steph
  Apr 30, 2007 at 5:49 pm

  She has a MySpace with photos.

  http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=36657620

• Teresa
  May 1, 2007 at 12:09 am

  That’s it. I give up on the human race, unless we make it the law that you have to get a license to be a parent. WHY don’t we value children enough to stop regarding them as the property of their parents until the parents actually kill them or f*** them up for life??? Seriously, isn’t it time we reconsidered the idea that absolutely anybody has the right to pop out kid after kid and subject them to whatever incompetent or vicious style of childrearing strikes their fancy?How about we make it law that children have basic civil rights, too? Like the right to be properly fed, housed, clothed, the right to decent hygiene, medical care, the right not to be beaten, raped, bought, sold, etc,etc? What’s so difficult about that idea? Stories like the above sicken me. I’m ready to consider the idea that reproduction is NOT a basic human right, but a privilege that must be earned. I know that people everywhere would scream bloody murder about the idea that the gov’t could interfere with their right to have kids, but dammit, some people JUST SHOULD NOT HAVE THEM. We all know it, so why can’t we do something about it?

• alalee
  May 1, 2007 at 1:25 am

  Teresa: In response to your question above about children’s basic rights, the United Nations (which the U.S. is part of), NEARLY FIFTY YEARS AGO passed the Declaration of the Rights of the Child:

  http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/25.htm

  I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, the system does not work and needs to be dismantled and rebuilt FROM THE TOP DOWN. That means starting with the lawmakers in this country who create inadequate or inappropriate laws regarding crimes against children and finishing with the social workers and CASAs who have a legal responsibility towards these kids once they’re in the system and even mandatory reporters (i.e., doctors, teachers, etc.) who have the opportunity to save them before they get in the system. Every time the system fails a child, everyone responsible should be held accountable.

  Child protective services is an agency that should be created and administered on a national level rather than a state/county level, should not be under the jurisdiction of the government but rather an independent entity, and should be geared towards actually protecting the children instead of their parents or inept social workers or disinterested judges and lawmakers. Time and time again, we prove through our current system that our nation does NOT follow guiding Principle 2 of the above declaration:

  The child shall enjoy special protection, and shall be given opportunities and facilities, by law and by other means, to enable him to develop physically, mentally, morally, spiritually and socially in a healthy and normal manner and in conditions of freedom and dignity. In the enactment of laws for this purpose, the best interests of the child shall be the paramount consideration.

  Time and time again we prove that not only are the best interests of the child NOT paramount, these children really have no rights whatsoever. If they did, it would not be condoned when parents abuse, neglect, torture, molest, murder their children. We allow this type of behavior to continue because we do not demand action as a society and as individuals from the officials we elect to represent us on state and national levels.

  I challenge everyone who reads this post, if they truly want to see the kinds of stories that appear on this blog and others diminish, to write letters to your legislators, on both state and national levels, demanding action be taken. Those people have a responsibility towards their consitutents since we’re the ones who put them there and pay their salaries, and we ALL have a responsibility towards protecting the children of this nation since they are our legacy, our future.

• Jane of Shadows
  May 1, 2007 at 9:42 am

  Not that I want to defend this woman if she actually did this, but when you read the detailed information on the link provided to CrimeBlog, apparently there is some evidence that the baby suffered from a severe illness, and that the mother did try to feed him frequently. Failing to get your sick child sufficient medical care, when you have two other children to worry about, is bad but not in the same category as deliberately starving a baby because you don’t feel like feeding him.

  It sounds as if there’s a possibility that the baby was very sick, and the parents are being railroaded as criminals because they’re total slobs. (Which, last I checked, was not criminal, though it’s certainly not a good idea.)

  My initial reaction was utter appalled horror because my own kids suffered at the hands of someone like this. I’m a fan fiction writer myself, and I met my current husband through his now-ex, a fan fiction writer and reader in my online community. After she left him and he had recovered from the emotional shock of her abandoning him and the kids, he told me that she had done things like chat on the Internet for 23 hours straight, and their one-year-old son was left in filthy diapers and would scavenge from the fridge when he was hungry, while my husband was at work. (Now he is our son — I’ve been raising him and his sister since their mother left — and he didn’t stop having problems with controlling his bowels until this year — he is 10 — and he has been sneaking food without asking his whole life. We blame this early experience.) So my first reaction to seeing that a fan fiction writer let her baby starve was horror that this kind of thing is more common than I thought.

  But it looks as if it might not have been that way. And while I will castigate parents for not getting a 4-lb 4-month old more medical attention than he got, that *isn’t* the same thing as abandoning a baby to starve because you’re too busy online.

  I do want to know what the fuck their pediatrician was thinking, though. My pediatrician was upset when my 4-week-old baby was 5 lbs. If she hadn’t gained weight, she would have been put in the hospital. How could a baby be 4 months old and 4 lbs and not in a hospital? And I know from genetically skinny, because my husband and sons actually *are* genetically skinny, and the son I bore was 14 lbs when he was 4 months old. Not 4 lbs. Babies who are genetically skinny are *still* bigger than that when they’re babies; the really skinny kicks in later.

• karen1066
  May 1, 2007 at 11:34 am

  i’m still mulling this one over before commenting. i have some questions for heather boyle: how much did the baby weigh at birth? did he have a low birth weight and just never gain or did he consistantly lose weight? also, what was his birth length? did he grow in length? if wic was involved, was he taken back to them on a regular basis and if so, were they not alarmed that a 4 month old baby only weighed 4 lbs? how often was he seeing the pediatrician? in a case like this, i would assume it would be close to daily or at least every couple of days so he could be closely monitored. was he ever hospitalized so they could closely monitor his progress rather than relying on the mother’s account as to how much formula he was taking in?

• Sasha
  May 1, 2007 at 12:45 pm

  Heather- If you were like her mother, why was that “sick” baby not in a hospital if indeed he was very sick? Or is that part of neglect. You must have a better explanation than her past and her meth mother. There are many of us from abused pasts that take help offered and get beyond it. Before you offer up excuses, you should offer a better explanation.

• Dawn
  May 2, 2007 at 6:16 am

  As usual, a child suffers. Really annoying. And like someone said before, not everyone SHOULD be allowed to have children. I’m sick and tired of adults taking advantage of kids just because they can.

• Heather Boyles
  May 2, 2007 at 4:07 pm

  This is Heather again. I know that an abusive mother and on meth is not an excuse but it is a reason for the conditions of her house. THe baby was going to the dr every other week, and wic on the weeks that they weren’t at the drs. She was giving medication to the baby that was perscribed and given formula that was for failure to thrive children. Yes, katie had issues but she was involved in treatment for those, she followed the drs advice that was concerned but not as he should be

• Meg
  May 2, 2007 at 4:21 pm

  Birth control…..Buh-erth Cun-trol….wow….

• karen1066
  May 2, 2007 at 6:04 pm

  heather…this just doesn’t make sense. i am the mother of 12 children (7 birth and 5 adopted). in my experience, the dr. stays very involved with an ill child. if she was taking this infant to a dr. and wic…each place seeing the child every week…it just seems that someone would have been concerned enough to suggest he be hospitalized. the thought that everyone watched this baby dwindle down to 4 lbs. and stood by and did nothing is hard to swallow. in this day and age, i sincerely doubt if they were in contact with the baby, they would sit by idlely and let him slowly waste away. it just doesn’t add up.

• Karen
  May 2, 2007 at 6:43 pm

  If she fed that poor child every two hours why was there no food found in his stomach? I’m sorry but I don’t beleive that a Dr. would not hospitalize a 4 month old baby weighing only 4 lbs!! It sickens me that someone is actually out there defending that monster.

• Teresa
  May 2, 2007 at 7:27 pm

  Sorry, Heather, but there is no way that baby got to be only four pounds at age four months while being seen every week by a doctor or at a WIC clinic. There would have been an intervention a lot sooner if any health care professionals with (A) a functioning brain, (B) a functioning conscience, had gotten one good look at that emaciated little body. I don’t know why you are defending this woman, but you would have done better to spend your energy doing what you could to protect the baby. Now it’s too late. Are you feeling guilty, and trying to cover up your own failure to do the right thing by the baby by coming to the mother’s defense? Shame on you, then.

• CHW1981
  May 2, 2007 at 7:32 pm

  There are a lot of things you all don’t know that will come out later. You see, I am a friend of kaite that is like her mother. She is not mentally ill, and there were doctors that were involved in daniel’s mendical care. Wic was also involved. She followed their instructions and she. She put Daniel in his swing and fell asleep. She woke up in the early morning hours to a dead baby. She tried her best. As for her housekeeping skills she never had a home. She had a mother on meth and lived from place to place almost on a weekly basis. I know she went ot the dr’s because she was taken by myself and a friend. THere are two sides to every story and before we know facts, we shouldn’t accuse.

  heather, let me tell you that I come from an alcoholic home and I was abused every which way, and now I have four beautiful girls and I don’t leave my house looking like shit and I don’t starve them and one thing i never did was leave a baby in the swing all night (if thats what your saying) . I for don’t believe that this so called women actually took her baby to the Dr. if she did the baby would have been in the hospital getting the care that he needed. and shame on you for defending a dumb bitch such as her. Fucking people make me sick, thinking about friendship more the the child. all I can say is RETARDS, is right!!!!!!!!!

• CHW1981
  May 2, 2007 at 7:34 pm

  heather, let me tell you that I come from an alcoholic home and I was abused every which way, and now I have four beautiful girls and I don’t leave my house looking like shit and I don’t starve them and one thing i never did was leave a baby in the swing all night (if thats what your saying) . I for don’t believe that this so called women actually took her baby to the Dr. if she did the baby would have been in the hospital getting the care that he needed. and shame on you for defending a dumb bitch such as her. Fucking people make me sick, thinking about friendship more the the child. all I can say is RETARDS, is right!!!!!!!!!

• Jessica
  May 2, 2007 at 8:49 pm

  Heather Boyles….please shut up with this bullshit. I am soooo freakin tired of this. Day after day, week after week poor little babies suffering and going through so much pain. This baby was neglected period end of story. Maybe he was ill but no excuse for him weighing only 4 pounds,dead in his swing. If he was that ill he should have been in the hospital. Any GOOD parent knows that. Bones sticking out of his body…come on get real. She tired my ass!!!!! THANK GOD she does not have the other children. I hope she never sees them again, so they have a chance. Regardless of how people grow up and are raised, THEY CAN CHANGE IF THEY WANT TO!!! You can get off your lazy ass and pick up trash in your home!

• alalee
  May 3, 2007 at 2:08 pm

  If the baby were truly being monitored, he would never have made it down to 4 lbs w/o being admitted to the hospital. I mean, come on, they don’t even let premature and/or low birth weight babies LEAVE the hospital until they’ve reached a certain weight, and it’s sure as hell a lot more than 4 pounds! Like I said, there’s always gotta be someone crawling out of the woodwork to defend the deviant behavior. It’s hard-wired into a lot of people, I think, to defend their families when they screw up, probably because they don’t want to suffer the ill effects of the stigma associated with that: OH MY GOD, YOU’RE RELATED TO [SO-AND-SO]. YOU MUST BE THE SAME AS THEY ARE!

• josie
  May 3, 2007 at 9:25 pm

  I CANT BELEIVE THIS BITCH IS DEFENDING THESE PEOPLE.WE ALL PAY OUR DUES SOONER OR LATER CHILDREN ARE GODS GIFT TO US. THIS KIND OF SHIT IS WHY I DONT WANT ANYTHING TO DO WITH HUMANS ANYMORE.I HAVE BEEN WANTING A CHILD FOR THE PAST 3 YEARS AND THESE FUCKEN PEOPLE TAKE THESE LITLLE ANGELS FOR GRANTED.I HOPE THEY NEVER HAVE A MOMENTS PEACE THE REST OF THERE PATHETIC LIFE FUCKEN LOSERS. ANIMALS DO A BETTER JOB!!!! THE LITTLE ANGEL IS IN A BETTER PLACE.

• childadvocate
  May 5, 2007 at 12:15 am

  If the child was being monitored by all of these people there will be a paper trail a mile long! When all of the medical records and WIC files are brought into court………The parents will go free and all of these other folks will pay dearly!!!!!!!!!! HIGHLY UNLIKELY AS ALL OF THOSE FOLKS ARE MANDATORY REPORTERS OF CHILD ABUSE AND WOULD IN NO WAY SEE A CHILD WHO WAS FOUND WITH NO FOOD IN THE STOMACH!DO YOU KNOW HOW HARD IT IS TO HAVE YOUR STOMACH CONTENTS BE ZERO???????????? ANYWAY….DO YOU THINK ALL OF THOSE PEOPLE WOULD RISK THEIR JOBS??FREEDOM???????? IDON’T KNOW SCOOBY SHAGGY FRED???? SOUNDS FISHY TO ME!!!!!

• Karen
  May 6, 2007 at 7:59 pm

  Thaddeus had a myspace too http://websleuths.com/forums/showpost.php?p=1450317&postcount=3, he’s the second link down. He was on in March and yet his profile reads does not want children. He also has this weird pic up, I can’t tell if its Katherine or not.

• Melissa
  May 8, 2007 at 5:28 am

  Ass,

  What the f@*k was that about?!

• Lulabelle
  May 8, 2007 at 5:50 am

  I’ve actually been enjoying the quirky, poetic comments left by Ass — now that I’ve gotten used to them (tried.) Now I’m trying to imagine what the writer must be like… and praying that they are not a mother.

• Karen
  May 8, 2007 at 8:17 am

  Ass you are so right! Imagine a world where parents did not put their children’s needs first! What a wonderful, loving and productive world it would be! As a matter of fact, why not just stop having children all together? They take up so much time and energy, really, life would just be soooo much better without them. Oh, but wait, without them there WOULD BE NO FUTURE, ASS!!!!!!!!!

• Kathy
  May 8, 2007 at 9:41 am

  Ass-
  Go play somewhere else. Your parents let you spedn way too much time on the computer…

• karen1066
  May 8, 2007 at 10:21 am

  Ass is obviously a child whose mamma was a crack whore and always put her johns before Ass’s needs. another unwanted child whose mamma couldn’t afford to abort. as a result, the poor little thing needs to be the center of attention and thinks attention, whether it be positive or negative, validates his/her worth. it’s ok sweetie…we’re all listening…keep talking.

• Melissa
  May 9, 2007 at 9:37 pm

  Well I got on here by accident. I live in Mesa Az and remember this all over the news. I read a few comments and it sounds as if they were to a point defending this horrid thing and what she did to that poor child. I understand a baby can be born with failure to thrive (not able or wanting to eat).. However this can be taken care of by doctors care. Yah sure we can say that she tok him to the doctor we read it here or there, but I think that the dead body of that baby speaks otherwise as grose as it may be. I have 3 children all under the age of 5 and yes I know it can be har, but god knows u have to ask for help. There are free clinics if you dont have money, and there are numbers to call if you need help or dont know what to do.Ih they were on wic she should have called a case worker or anything did she do any of these things as that baby sat in that apartment and died on NO and she should be the next one to have to suffer. Lets see how her CRAZY, big fat ass would like to go days without eating. And we can only hope someone will be there to give her the same type of CARE she gave that little baby. God has the baby now and he will never have pain again~May god have mercy on her soul because I don’t think I could!!

• Kississe
  May 10, 2007 at 8:49 am

  http://crime.about.com/b/a/257415.htm

  They got life. That is exactly what they deserve!

• Renee
  May 10, 2007 at 9:22 am

  Thank god they got life. Bottom line, there are two parents, not one, two to look out for the baby and didn’t. Drugs are illegal. And the drugs of choice of these scum bags are the kind that make you the walking dead before you die. They do not have the right, do not deserve to and are not fit to– even raise animals let alone children. If they can buy drugs, they can buy condems, (or get them for free from the clinic) then (ass), they can think about themselves all day long and hopefully overdose and die. This is about responsibility. They have children, obviously don’t love them, they love drugs more and they can’t be responsible enough to get them help or feed them. At 4lbs, no disease would mask the look of death in this baby. NO real/certified doctor could in good faith ignore the lack of weight at 4 months of a 4lb baby. I doubt their doctor knew the weight at death. I am a paralegal and there would be MEDICAL MALPRACTICE if that happened. You know, no one has mentioned how the baby was found in a swing. Most parents, admit it or not, use the “swing” as a good old “stop crying” method. Finding the baby with an empty stomach in a swing tells me all I need to know—-I’ll translate for the delusional blogger who says they were gettin g help and trying to feed the baby….. A 4lb baby has to eat frequently as the stomach is not large enough to hold much food. No trace means a long time with nothing, as TWO parents are doing drugs and do not have time to feed or clean the baby, the swing will shut the baby up as its’ tiny little system is heavily rocked away and the crying subsides…. Further, as a mother of young tots I have YET to see a swing that allows babies or even fits babies (because they are too big) that are 4LBS! There are minimums and maximums to swings and this child should never ever been in a swing with any health condition.

• Jessica
  May 10, 2007 at 9:42 pm

  YOU ALL HAVE THE WRONG STORY. That is the couple that had a six week old baby they starved. This story is a 4 month 4lb baby. Just wanted to let you all know. And ASS….go somewhere else with you immature bullshit. You sound like a waste of space on this earth. If you think parents should act this way….God help you!!

• Jessica
  May 10, 2007 at 9:43 pm

  YOU ALL HAVE THE WRONG STORY. That is the couple that had a six week old baby they starved that got sentenced life. This story is a 4 month 4lb baby. Just wanted to let you all know. And ASS….go somewhere else with you immature bullshit. You sound like a waste of space on this earth. If you think parents should act this way….God help you!!

• karen1066
  May 11, 2007 at 11:43 am

  renee, while i am in NO WAY defending this couple, i don’t recall seeing anything about drug use…i think it was no “computer use/story writing time”.

• Renee
  May 11, 2007 at 2:58 pm

  Karen,
  You’re right, I guess confused another comment - on this story I read it was the mother’s “mother” who was an addict as she grew up. Correcting my story above, still 2 people, doing NO drugs, NEGLECTING baby in a swing at 4lbs!!! Still bad, unexplainable, roaches and ants everywhere, garbage, no food in the stomach, just deplorable. SO WHAT WAS THEIR EXCUSE?

• karen1066
  May 12, 2007 at 12:16 pm

  renee…i know what you mean…at least if they had been high on something, there would have been an explanation…but to be in your right mind and still let this happen…makes me sick. i don’t buy the fact that she is mentally ill…and the crap about the “meth mom” and “no home…had to move from home to home”….just a another lame ass defense. what i don’t get with these people…don’t they understand that if they take a half hour every few hours out of their “tight ass schedules”…pick the child up…change the diaper…hold them and feed them a bottle while you either sing a little lullaby or just talk to them in a soothing way….burp; swaddle….and poof!!! no more crying…sleeping baby…mamma and papa not heading to jail because of dead baby.

• rockdoll_71
  Nov 11, 2007 at 8:33 am

  They should be starved, just like they starved their poor baby. That’s what should happen. I don’t have any pity at all for them. They are monsters, as far as I am concerned.

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