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A trial is underway for an Alberta foster parent charged in the death of a five-year-old boy who had significant disabilities.
The boy was found dead on the afternoon of June 14, 2022 in a garage on a rural property near Leduc, Alta.
That morning he had been placed in the front seat of a pickup truck while the man took other children from the house to school. The court heard the boy was non-verbal and had physical disabilities which meant he could not sit unassisted or maintain control of his head, neck or trunk.
He remained there for hours before the couple caring for him found him unconscious on the floor of the vehicle and called 911. Paramedics pronounced him dead at the scene and an autopsy determined he asphyxiated.
Following a request from Crown prosecutor Dallas Sopko on Monday, publication of the boy’s name and any information that could identify him is prohibited. Due to the ban, CBC News is also not naming the man charged in the case at this time.
The defendant pleaded not guilty Monday to the three charges he faces: involuntary manslaughter, criminal negligence causing death and failure to provide the necessaries of life.
Sopko told the court that the man and woman had been foster parents to the boy for several years and well understood the care he needed.
However, the child was left in a car without an “obviously necessary” car seat while the adoptive father hurried to take other children to school and then to work, Sopko said. The adoptive mother does not face charges in the case.
The man expected his wife to take the child to school later and texted her to say the child was in the car. But the court heard she was unresponsive for almost an hour and was in the house with another child while the van was parked in the garage all day.
“Inexplicably, [the five-year-old] “He was left unsupervised and unbelted in the vehicle for almost eight and a half hours,” Sopko said.
The Crown does not allege that the man intended to injure or kill the child, but rather that serious injury or death was a foreseeable consequence of his actions.
“The events crystallized the moment he walked away from the residence,” Sopko said.
Security video from inside the garage was played Monday at the judge-alone trial in Wetaskiwin, Alta.
It shows the adoptive father carrying the child to the car and placing him in the passenger seat. Come back once, adjust the child in the seat and close the car door. Then two other children appear and run to get into another vehicle, he opens the garage door and leaves with them.
Footage from later that day shows the adoptive mother getting into the driver’s seat of the car where the child was placed. As she sits there, she calls out to her husband; when he opens the passenger side door and picks up the child, they both start screaming.
In a recording of the 911 call played in court, the man told the operator that the child is not breathing and that his medical condition means he functions “like a three-month-old.”
Prosecutors plan to present evidence about what the adoptive father did after the boy’s death, alleging that the man “intentionally misled” the boy’s pediatrician about how he died.
The trial is scheduled to last until December 12.
