WannaBeMaybe
Trusted Member
Trial is just starting for this case, and didn't find it on the site. There's a lot to this story, and very sad that so many people failed Alexandru.
Apologies for it being so long.....just wanted to get the history in and didn't want to double/triple post.
http://www.calgarysun.com/2013/05/0...-of-a-minor-in-northwest-community-of-citadel
http://www.calgarysun.com/2013/05/1...d-extremely-emaciated-in-citadel-home-elusive
http://www.calgarysun.com/2016/05/2...couple-accused-of-neglecting-alexandru-radita
http://www.calgarysun.com/2014/02/1...police-say-died-from-starvation-and-infection
http://cnews.canoe.com/CNEWS/Crime/2016/05/25/22636713.html
Apologies for it being so long.....just wanted to get the history in and didn't want to double/triple post.
Homicide detectives are investigating the disturbing discovery of an extremely emaciated youth in a Citadel home.
The emergency call came just after 10 p.m. Tuesday to the Citadel Dr. N.W. bungalow for reports of a deceased youth, police said.
An autopsy was set for Wednesday, police saying no details would be available until after it is completed.
Sources said the state of the child’s extremely emaciated body was shocking and upsetting.
It is unknown whether immediate calls for assistance for the child were made.
EMS spokesman Stuart Brideaux said the teen could not be revived once paramedics arrived.
The teen, who is believed to be 15, is said to have lived in the home with his parents and several siblings, some of whom are adults.
http://www.calgarysun.com/2013/05/0...-of-a-minor-in-northwest-community-of-citadel
While an emergency call came in just after 10 p.m. Tuesday for reports of a deceased youth, sources said it is believed family of the teen initially turned to religious support to deal with possible medical problems, ultimately ending in tragedy.
Police have said little on the case and could not confirm that information, saying only circumstances are suspicious and additional autopsy findings are required to offer more answers.
They are not releasing the cause or nature of the death of the teen, believed to be 15.
Several members of the family who live in the home, including parents and other children, have been questioned by police but it is unknown if anyone was taken into custody or charged.
It is believed the child suffered from medical issues, possibly diabetes, which may have played a role in his deterioration, sources said.
It is not known if the call to emergency crews was delayed but it was too late to revive the boy when paramedics arrived at the Citadel Dr. N.W. home.
Thursday, homicide detectives and crime scenes investigators were at the house.
It is believed child welfare officials were involved with the family years ago but details were not available about why and what action were taken.
http://www.calgarysun.com/2013/05/1...d-extremely-emaciated-in-citadel-home-elusive
he first paramedic to see Alexandru Radita dead in his bed couldn’t believe what she saw, court heard Tuesday.
Deborah Baumback said Radita was so thin he was almost unrecognizable as a human being.
“I actually remember walking in the room thinking ‘what the hell is that?’” Baumback said.
“The patient was so emaciated to the point he was mummified.”
Charged with first-degree murder in the 15-year-old’s May 7, 2013, death are his parents, Emil, 59, and Rodica Radita, 53.
Baumback said the boy was just skin and bones when paramedics arrived at the Radita’s Citadel residence in northwest Calgary.
“The eyeballs were sunken in, every rib you could see,” she said.
“He was so, so extraordinarily thin.”
And Baumback said she wasn’t given much help by a man in the room who identified himself as the boy’s father.
“He was not forthcoming and had to be repeatedly questioned to get the answers,” Baumback said.
She also said emergency personnel arrived at the home to find a group of 15 to 20 people in the living room chanting and praying.
Meanwhile, in her opening address, Crown prosecutor Susan Pepper said she intends to show the Raditas planned and deliberated their son’s killing by neglecting him for years.
Pepper told Justice Karen Horner that Alex weighed a mere 37 lbs. at the time of his death.
http://www.calgarysun.com/2016/05/2...couple-accused-of-neglecting-alexandru-radita
Protected as a child, forgotten as a teen.
With two Calgary parents facing first-degree murder charges in the starvation death of their severely emaciated 15-year-old son, the question now is not so much why — but how social services in two provinces failed to protect a child known to be in trouble.
The death of Alexandru Gabriel Radita in his Citadel Drive home ended a short life rife with medical issues, and plagued by adults who couldn’t agree on how to treat him.
On one side there were doctors in the Lower Mainland, who diagnosed the sickly, dark-haired boy with diabetes requiring intense medical care and a three-week stay in hospital.
On the other side, an immigrant mother and father distrustful of the medical system, who saw physicians focusing on only one illness, when it was clear to them their boy had many.
“They are accusing us that we have medically neglected our son, and pursuing Family Services to take our son from us,” reads a letter dated Dec. 27, 2003, reportedly written by the boy’s father to the United Nations Commission for Human Rights.
“If Everything HAD been done Properly In the Beginning we SHOULD not be here today.”
Repeated visits to the hospital, and disagreements over what was wrong with the boy — his parents second-guessing the doctors and making their own diagnoses — finally led to the ailing Alexandru being taken into foster care by the B.C. government.
That was Dec. 2003, and the next year saw his family — including seven siblings — in a very public battle for custody, with stories on the fight appearing in Romanian community forums.
http://www.calgarysun.com/2014/02/1...police-say-died-from-starvation-and-infection
Alexandru Radita was “in a significant state of starvation” at the time of his death, an expert told his parents’ murder trial Wednesday.
Dr. Daniele Pacaud said autopsy photos of the 15-year-old also showed he had multiple bed ulcers “that seemed to indicate a state of neglect.”
Emil, 59, and Rodica Radita, 53, are each charged with first-degree murder in the May 7, 2013, death of the teen from bacterial sepsis caused by complications related to poor nutritional and physical care.
Pacaud said Alexandru would have been obviously ill in the months leading up to his death.
http://cnews.canoe.com/CNEWS/Crime/2016/05/25/22636713.html