http://www.thestar.com/News/GTA/article/446217

A Mississauga woman who starved her autistic sister to death deserves a lengthy prison sentence, partly because she has shown no remorse, the Crown prosecutor said during a pre-sentencing hearing in Brampton on Tuesday.

Justice Joseph Fragomeni asked Alison Cox if she had anything to say. She stood up, shook her head and sat back down.

…..when Allison married her husband Orlando, and moved into a new four-bedroom home on Fairwind Dr., that Pinckney was moved from an upstairs bedroom, with padding on the walls to prevent her from injuring herself, to a windowless basement, with bare walls.

The room had a concrete floor (plywood covered a portion of it) and a small area rug with a TV and a dresser. Her bed was a deflated air mattress, on plywood.

If after a judge and jury review all of the facts, they vindicate the guardian and determine that she behaved according to the rules of society. Then I will question if that society should be preserved.

If they find fault with the guardian, I hope she is punished to the full extent of the law; without reducing the sentence because the deceased was autistic.

There was a case a few years back where a woman died in her husband’s care, in very similar circumstances. She had severe psychiatric problems and for some reason he had been unable to get help for her. After years of attempting to take care of her, and becoming somewhat unstable himself, he gave up and locked her in, and then that was how they lived. She was found in indescribable conditions. The cases are not enormously different, at least in appearance.

Yes, there are other options. But you have to know about them, have them accessible, and be persuaded that abuse is not acceptable. Think about how hard it’s been to find qualified help when you’ve needed it. Even resourceful people with money and loving families have trouble finding respite care they trust. If you’re not so good at finding help, if the person in your care is not your child, if you have your own problems….you know, the strain of caregiving is why they instruct new mothers in calling for help when they’re overwhelmed and the baby won’t stop crying. And why, in more civilized places, nurses will call on new parents and check that everything is all right with the baby and the parents. It cuts down on child abuse and domestic violence. I don’t know how much help it’d be to have a similar hotline for people caring for adults. My guess is the coordination would have to be unusually good.

A lot of the strain for Jim and me lay precisely in the fact that we felt that we could not do as much as we felt was needed for my in-laws. My mother-in-law in particular needs a lot of psychiatric care, after a life of psychiatric issues and hospitalization on and off. It was truly painful to see her decline and our efforts to advocate for her needs and get her care were met with denial and I really could no longer bear to live in the same house, and not be able to help…… So for myself, no, I cannot understand how someone could let another human being end up in urine and feces and severely underweight. I need to know more facts about the case but there is a lot that can be done and we have to try.