How often have we heard that children need a 'traditional family' -- meaning a mother and father. That certainly didn't work for Payton Ettinger.
[Courtney G.] Tressler called police May 17 to say she had found her son, Payton Wesley Ettinger, dead four hours after feeding him and putting him in his crib for a nap, authorities said. A pathologist's report found the boy had virtually no food in his stomach or intestines when he died.
The pathologist found that the boy suffered from "profound malnutrition," had no body fat and that the "skin on his face was drawn tightly against his skull and face bones with obvious emaciation," according to a probable charge affidavit against Tressler.
Investigators said the boy had not seen a doctor since Nov. 3, 2006, when he weighed 16 pounds, 5 ounces as a 1-year-old, according to the affidavit.
Tressler told officers she had intended to take her son to a doctor May 15 after noticing he had lost weight but had delayed the trip for financial reasons. But investigators said in the affidavit that she visited a doctor twice on May 19 for her own medical reasons.
Clearly the mother didn't have his best interests at heart. What about Payton's father?
Payton Ettinger was unable to speak, walk or control most of his physical movements due to brain damage suffered during abuse by his father, police said. The boy's father, Martin Ettinger, is serving a 5-year prison sentence in Michigan after pleading guilty to battering his son so badly the child was confined to a crib and required constant care.
The next time some uninformed person tells you that children need to be in 'traditional families' instead of with loving same-sex couples or single mothers, tell them it didn't work for Payton Ettinger.
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