Timothy Ferguson, a teenager with special needs, suffered horrific torture and abuse at the hands of his mother and brother - and the case exposed holes in the child welfare system
An Oklahoma boy was starved, left in ice-cold baths for hours by his own mum, and forced to sleep in a basement closet - a tragic case that exposed holes in the child welfare system.
Timothy Ferguson, 15, became the target of unimaginable abuse at the hands of his mother, Shanda Vander Ark, and older brother, Paul Ferguson. He was subjected to horrific torture including being forced to eat bread doused in hot sauce and lay in ice-cold baths for hours at a time.
The special needs boy tragically died in a small closet under the basement stairs on July 6, 2022, and his mother called him "pathetic" in his final moments. An autopsy determined the teenager died from from malnourishment and hypothermia. The medical examiner ruled his death a homicide.
The boy's attorney Fred Johnson insisted she didn't intend to kill him and claimed that "something broke" in her mentally, adding that her co-defendant son didn't understand the damage they were causing to the victim until it was too late. However, in court earlier this year Judge Matthew R. Kacel described the litany of abuse Timothy was subjected to - including sleep depravation, ice baths, forcing him to puke up food and eating bread with hot sauce, putting Tabasco in his mouth, having strict time limits for toilet use, sleeping in a closet, making him do wall sits and putting him under incessant monitoring.
The judge said the woman "knew exactly" what she was doing as she took precautions to avoid that others noticed what was happening to her child. Kacel said the killer mother hid the teen from his grandparents and closed the garage doors when she made Timothy clean up the area without pants.
Timothy's death has raised questions about holes in the child welfare system as it emerged that during his life, child protective services staff visited the Ferguson family home nine times. On February 1, 2008, the Oklahoma Department of Human Services opened an investigation into the two parents, centered on Timothy, who was then 18 months old, based on allegations of inadequate malnutrition and medical neglect.
Both parents denied the allegations but one case worker noted the boy was unhealthy and underweight. Social workers then recommended services such as an early intervention program for families of toddlers with developmental delays or disabilities as well as a safety plan requiring parents to follow doctors recommendation.
Eventually, the case was closed and the family remained intact. Most investigations after that led to unsubstantiated findings but on one occasion, in 2009, authorities decided to remove the children from the home due to safety concerns after finding animal and human feces on the carpets and noticing that the children were living in filthy conditions. At the time, Timothy was three years old.
The four children spent two years in foster care while their parents - Eric and Shanda - worked on their parental problems. However, shortly after losing custody of their kids, the pair divorced and the children's father completed counseling and parenting courses in order to have them back. However, the mother stopped participating and told a social worker she "worked through everything she was willing to."
The children's father was granted full custody of them while their mother was given supervised visitation rights. She then remarried and moved to Michigan, leaving her children in Oklahoma. Timothy was then sent to live with his mother in Norton Shores in Muskegon County, Michigan, and within a year he was tragically dead.
Timothy's older sister, Millie Ferguson, spoke to Michigan Live and said her little brother was loved despite the way he was treated by his mother. Talking about Shanda and Eric, she referred to them as "the parents" instead of mom and dad, as she explained: "I haven't referred to her as my mother since I was 14 or 15 years old. She hasn't really been a big part of my life and I prefer to call someone lovingly by the name of 'mother' when they've earned that title."
Vander Ark was found guilty in the death of Timothy, who weighed just 69 pounds when he passed away, and was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. About one month later, her 22-year-old son apologized in court and asked for mercy, but was sentenced to a minimum of 30 years in prison.