Edmonton father 'snapped' when autistic son was to be moved to a group home

EDMONTON - A man who killed himself and his autistic son was defeated when the provincial government insisted on moving the out-of-control child from a private facility to a group home.

Deena Caputo told a fatality inquiry that her common-law husband, Jeffrey Bostick, was like a zombie when he toured the group home on Sept. 22, 2009.

She said the home had magnetic doors to lock children in their rooms, and Bostick was horrified.

"His eyes were glossed over. He wasn't human," Caputo testified Tuesday. "It's like he snapped. He didn't say a word, not one word."

A week later, Bostick and his 11-year-old son, Jeremy, were found dead inside a barricaded bedroom in the basement of their north Edmonton home. A cylinder of carbon monoxide was in the room and the door and air vent were sealed with duct tape and wet towels.

Caputo detailed to the court the family's constant fight to get help for the boy.

She said they moved in 2006 to Alberta from Ontario so Bostick, heavily in debt, could find work and have access to better programs for children with disabilities. Besides Jeremy, who was her stepson, she had a biological son with attention deficit disorder and oppositional defiant disorder.

But Jeremy remained the biggest challenge, she said, and it was a constant struggle over the next few years to get help through the province's Family Support for Children with Disabilities.

"It was always a waiting list. It was always an availability issue," she said. "It was like pulling teeth to get any type of service."

She said workers who came to their home either couldn't come back because of funding problems or refused to work with Jeremy because he was so violent. At school, he was in a special class for children with behavioural problems. But he once attacked three classmates and a teacher and was admitted to hospital.

He was sent to hospital another time when he smashed his head into the car window on the way to school. He was drugged and strapped to a bed for 36 hours, said Caputo.

She said one doctor suggested that if the family couldn't handle the child, they should put him up for adoption.

Caputo recalled how shortly after the last emergency room visit, in 2008, Jeremy got a bed in a private facility on weekdays. At the Protegra home, operated by the Alberta Association for Community Living, the boy had two workers during the day and seemed to be doing well.

But it cost up to $32,000 a month to keep him there, and the province wanted to move him to a group home run by Catholic Social Services.

Caputo said she and Jeremy's dad were concerned that he would hurt himself or others in a group setting.

The stress of the situation was also taking a toll on the couple's relationship, said Caputo. The day before the deaths, Caputo said Bostick agreed to go to a psychiatrist to deal with his depression.

"I'm suffering," Bostick wrote on a card he gave to Caputo with a bunch of red roses. "You're my whole world, Princess."

He also confessed he had been keeping secrets from her. He had lost his job months earlier with Air Liquide, an industrial gas distributor.

And he owed the Protegra home the previous month's payment of $32,000. The province had been giving the funding to Bostick, who was then to pay Protegra.

Caputo said she didn't see the warning signs. Although Bostick had talked two years earlier about killing himself and his son, "I didn't think he was serious," she said.

Dr. Keith Goulden, a pediatrician specializing in autism, testified Jeremy had a severe form of autism combined with an intellectual disability. He was off and on medications, including tranquilizers.

Goulden said autism is a frustrating and stressful disorder for families to deal with because there is no treatment. Educational supports offer the best solution.

"All of us have a breaking point," Goulden said. "All of us can get to the edge of whatever cliff that is."

He added that he's not proud of the respite care the Alberta government offers for families dealing with an autistic child. "But it is what it is."