Parents Indicted In Faith-Healing Death

OREGON CITY, Ore. — A couple whose church preaches against medical care are facing criminal charges after their young daughter died of an infection that authorities said went untreated.

Carl and Raylene Worthington were indicted Friday on charges of manslaughter and criminal mistreatment in the death of their 15-month-old daughter Ava. They belong to the Followers of Christ Church, whose members have a history of treating gravely ill children only with prayer.

Ava died March 2 of bronchial pneumonia and a blood infection. The state medical examiner's office has said she could have been treated with antibiotics.

Dr. Christopher Young, a deputy state medical examiner, said the child's breathing was further hampered by a benign cyst on her neck that had never been medically addressed, The Oregonian reported.

Laws passed in the 1990s struck down legal shields for faith-healing parents after the deaths of several children whose parents were members of the fundamentalist church.

Since those laws took effect in 1999, "We haven't seen any cases of significant medical neglect ... until now," said child abuse Detective Jeff Green of the Clackamas County Sheriff's Office.

The Worthingtons could face more than six years if convicted on the manslaughter charges and up to a year on the mistreatment charges, said Greg Horner, chief deputy district attorney. They were released on $250,000 bail, he said.

Horner said he didn't know whether the couple had lawyers to speak for them. A number listed for the couple was disconnected. A man who answered the phone at the church Monday would not identify himself and said: "We've been told 'No comment.'"

The Worthingtons also lost a baby boy in 2001, but an investigation was closed after family members told police the child was stillborn. Several other Followers of Christ children have also been stillborn or died during home births in recent years, and none of the deaths resulted in criminal charges, authorities have said.

Comments

[helonias]

Didn't they pray hard enough or top the wrong god

[anastasiabeaverhousen]

At the very least, spay and neuter the parents so they can't inflict their insanity on another child. Jail? I'm not sure.

[geobushono]

Taliban

[ceu]

Sounds more like Christian Science.

[desthmoneses]

a cult is a cult is a cult

[Abroad]

Every fundamentalist bible preacher in the country should look himself or herself in the mirror and ask themselves: "Am I partially responsible for this tragedy?"

As far as I am concerned the answer is yes.

I won't say more because this story makes me want to cry.

[Counterglow]

Maybe I'll recover a little faith in the system if these people get charged with manslaughter. They need to be in jail, and they need to be kept away from children.

[ChiGuy]

Didn't God also create doctors, medicine, hospitals, and researchers?

[wolfgangmo]

If I read my Discovery Institute Press releases correctly, then no, God did not create doctors, medicine, hospitals, and researchers. Satan did and he created evolution and the democrats as well.

So there.

[Pandu]

Can doctors, medicine, hospitals, and researchers stop death?

[zinderel]

well actually, yes, as evidenced by the Terry Schiavo case. They stopped her physical death pretty damn well, even though her spirit had long ago left. God can't stop death any more than a doctor can, though, when it comes time for it. If he could, we'd have immortals walking around.

God cursed his children with death for eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, his first bi-polar act as the insane god of the bible. "Hey, you see this tree I'm drawing special attention to? The tree that if I didn't want anyone eating from, I shouldn't have ever made? Well don't eat from it. Oh, and since you don't understand good and evil or right and wrong, I know that telling you not to do something makes no sense, but...eh....what do I care, I know what you're gonna do anyway, so...run along and entertain me!"

Yeah. That's something I wanna follow...

[waitng]

These parents did the right thing by providing proof that the old white man with a white beard wearing a white robe sitting on that white cloud is the graven image that christians have always worshipped. No wonder that old man did not respond to their calls; he doesn't make house calls.
This also shows why it is so easy to dupe a large segment of our population in this country and on this planet. Which makes me really believe that religion is a hard wired trait in our species that leads to extinction or at the least culls out a lot of mindless people.

[Libsrule]

Susiesorority had it absolutely right.

These fucking morons can't grasp the idea that MAYBE, JUST MAYBE THEIR GOD SENT KNOWLEDGE TO DOCTORS TO HEAL THEIR CHILD!!!!!!

How fucking stupid can you get. This is not the first time this has happened and neither will it be the last so long as religious nutjobs tell these people that GOD DONE DID IT OR IS GONNA DO IT so don't worry your pretty little brainless heads about anything.

AGGHHHHHHH Religion just makes me want to scream somdays.

[susiesorority]

An old man was caught in a flood, and took refuge on the 2nd floor. His neighbor came by in a canoe and said, "old man, come on, jump in!"
And the old man said, "God will save me." So the neighbor left. The water rose, so he took refuge on his roof. And a motorboat came by and a guy said, "old man, come on! It's getting late." And the old man said, "God will save me." Finally the old man spotted a helicopter looking for the displaced, and the pilot yelled down, "Old man, come on! This is it!" And the old man said, "God will save me." So, the old man drowned, and when he got to the afterlife, he said, "God, why didn't you save me?" And God said, "Are you kidding?? I sent two boats, a helicopter, and three people and still you didn't act."

Use your common sense people. In a supposedly educated society, the death of this child is tragic, and pathetic.

[desthmoneses]

The mother and father should be tried for second degree murder and child services should take there children and force them to live with other relatives. Not a jury in the world will feel sorry for them when they hear they a deprived an 11 year old girl of medical attention against the warning of their own family, if there is a hell and I've been wrong all along then when I go there I'm sure I'll see these parents there.

[TN]

Where was this family. If my sister did this to one of her children, I would have sneaked the child to the doctor and reported her to the police myself. The family enabled this. Keep those children away from anyone in that family.

[ming099]

...I have no kick against religion..­..everyone should have some.....a little......


.....BUT..when it rises to this level....w­ell....tha­ts just plain stupid......I dont think this is what God had in mind when it was asked of us to believe in him......

...maybe they will go to jail......but that wont bring the child back.....she is a casualty of her parents fanaticism­..........­...

[KristenfromMA]

A similar situation happened in Massachusetts many years ago. The Twitchells (sp?) refused medical care for their infant son (they were Christian Scientists). The boy died of what turned out to be a bowel obstruction. During the trial, doctors described how excruciating the pain the boy must have experienced was (which I can confirm, as my adult brother had a partial blocakge 2 years ago - he said it was the worst pain he's ever experienced). In the end, the couple was convicted, though I can't remember if it was 2nd degree murder or negligant homicide. They were shocked at the verdict. I felt NO sympathy for them, as the father wore glasses and had had a broken bone set (which is apparently allowable in the CS church). Long story short, this couple should be brought up on charges, and their other children removed from the home. I guess it depends on state law. Here, I think they would be prosecuted, which makes me glad I'm a bay stater.

[ceu]

The conviction was overturned.

[ceu]

Oops - hit enter too soon.
I believe that they were convicted of involuntary manslaughter, the defense was that they had the right not to call a doctor because they were Christian Scientists and therefore protected by the First Amendment. IIRC, they received no jail time and their conviction was overturned by the MA Supreme Court.

[Phaedrus21]

This is child abuse and should be prosecuted as such.

[MichaelTenery]

Words fail. Children are not property. There must be a line somewhere and certainly this is over it.

[wolfgangmo]

Actually if you read most statutes regarding children as well as most legal decisions, you will find that children are property in some defined sense. The only main caveat to this is that they are property that cannot be transfered or willingly destroyed, but outside of those limitations children are indeed property.

[rini]

You did the best for your daughter that you knew how to? I am sorry to pick on a family in it's grief, but you did know that doctors existed, didn't you??? If everything could be solved by prayer, there would be no problems in the world. They pray a lot in the middle east, you know.

[ChimpsWithNukes]

But they pray to a god of storms and war (YHWH), so it looks like their prayers are working.