Slaying of boy with severe autism leaves community searching for answers
Grace Aman, 9, holds her new computer tablet Friday while standing with her mother, Susan, at the Autism Society of Illinois in Lombard. Daniel Simmons, 15, who is also autistic, helped raise $3,000 to provide the tablets, which came with applications especially useful for people with the developmental disability. (Keri Wiginton, Chicago Tribune / June 20, 2013)
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On a Saturday afternoon in March, Alex Spourdalakis, a 14-year-old boy with severe autism, sat in a darkened room at Loyola University Medical Center with his mother and godmother nearby.
In a hushed voice, Dorothy Spourdalakis told an autism care advocate who had come to offer help that she had been at her son's bedside around the clock for weeks. The only time she stepped out of the room, she said, was when he slept — in short catnaps.
"She was very calm," said Mary Kay Betz, executive director of the Autism Society of Illinois. "She seemed like a very caring, loving mother who wanted what was appropriate with her son."
Three months after that quiet visit, Spourdalakis' relatives arrived at the family's River Grove apartment to discover a grisly sight: Alex had been stabbed to death in his bedroom. His mother and godmother lay nearby after swallowing multiple pills in an apparent suicide attempt, according to officials.
The women survived and now face charges of first-degree murder.
Though no one condones the crime, experts across the country say the case serves as a shocking example of the toll autism can take on an entire family.
While the boy was not familiar to the public, his case was known in some autism circles, and photos of him — often strapped to a bed — appeared in videos and Facebook posts from around the world as people argued about treatments and causes.
The slain teen has become a celebrity of sorts for a group of critics who contend that hospitals routinely ignore other physical issues they contend are at the root of the autism.
The criticism is flatly rejected by medical experts, autism researchers and advocacy groups that maintain the predominant form of treatment — early diagnosis and intervention — offers the best chance for improving a child's progress and outcomes.
Still others say the case spotlights a need to make more resources available to families caring for someone with developmental disabilities. Because of limited state resources, such families can face a 141/2-year wait to receive assistance at their home through the state Department of Human Services, advocates say.
"When you look at the gap in services, and what families have to go through ... it makes you want to scream," said Shawn Jeffers, executive director of the Little City Foundation, a Palatine nonprofit that offers assistance to those with autism and other disabilities.
The River Grove Police Department was used to getting calls from the neat, well-kept second-floor apartment on West Grand Avenue where Minas and Dorothy Spourdalakis, described as "really nice, hardworking people," lived for nearly two decades, Chief Rodger Loni said.
On seven occasions, the couple requested help in getting their strong, unwilling, 200-pound son to the doctor's office. Six to eight police officers were needed to assist ambulance personnel in strapping the boy to a stretcher, Loni said.
There were never signs of abuse, and police never responded to the apartment for any other types of problems, Loni said. "They were under a lot of pressure and burden because of the situation," he said. "We never had a problem there."
But on June 9, police received a 911 call from Ski Wysocki, Dorothy Spourdalakis' younger brother. He and the boy's father, Minas, had rushed to the apartment when they couldn't reach Alex's mother or the godmother and caretaker, Jolanta Skrodzka, by phone.
After kicking in a locked bedroom door, the men discovered Spourdalakis and Skrodzka semiconscious in Alex's bedroom, where the boy lay dead, prosecutors said.
In a letter found in the apartment and in statements to authorities, Spourdalakis, 50, and Skrodzka, 44, spelled out a pact to kill Alex, who they believed received subpar treatment from medical providers and was suffering after his most recent prolonged illness, officials said.
According to prosecutors, the women allegedly gave Alex an overdose of his prescribed sleeping medication; when he remained alive several hours later, Spourdalakis used a kitchen knife to stab him four times — twice in the heart — and slit his wrist.
She then gave the knife to Skrodzka, who killed the family cat so it would not end up in a shelter after they were dead, prosecutors said.
The women had met at a family wake in 2000 and remained close despite Skrodzka being in the country illegally on an expired visa, Loni said. They requested in a letter that their bodies be cremated and the ashes spread in Michigan's
In a hushed voice, Dorothy Spourdalakis told an autism care advocate who had come to offer help that she had been at her son's bedside around the clock for weeks. The only time she stepped out of the room, she said, was when he slept — in short catnaps.
"She was very calm," said Mary Kay Betz, executive director of the Autism Society of Illinois. "She seemed like a very caring, loving mother who wanted what was appropriate with her son."
Three months after that quiet visit, Spourdalakis' relatives arrived at the family's River Grove apartment to discover a grisly sight: Alex had been stabbed to death in his bedroom. His mother and godmother lay nearby after swallowing multiple pills in an apparent suicide attempt, according to officials.
The women survived and now face charges of first-degree murder.
Though no one condones the crime, experts across the country say the case serves as a shocking example of the toll autism can take on an entire family.
While the boy was not familiar to the public, his case was known in some autism circles, and photos of him — often strapped to a bed — appeared in videos and Facebook posts from around the world as people argued about treatments and causes.
The slain teen has become a celebrity of sorts for a group of critics who contend that hospitals routinely ignore other physical issues they contend are at the root of the autism.
The criticism is flatly rejected by medical experts, autism researchers and advocacy groups that maintain the predominant form of treatment — early diagnosis and intervention — offers the best chance for improving a child's progress and outcomes.
Still others say the case spotlights a need to make more resources available to families caring for someone with developmental disabilities. Because of limited state resources, such families can face a 141/2-year wait to receive assistance at their home through the state Department of Human Services, advocates say.
"When you look at the gap in services, and what families have to go through ... it makes you want to scream," said Shawn Jeffers, executive director of the Little City Foundation, a Palatine nonprofit that offers assistance to those with autism and other disabilities.
The River Grove Police Department was used to getting calls from the neat, well-kept second-floor apartment on West Grand Avenue where Minas and Dorothy Spourdalakis, described as "really nice, hardworking people," lived for nearly two decades, Chief Rodger Loni said.
On seven occasions, the couple requested help in getting their strong, unwilling, 200-pound son to the doctor's office. Six to eight police officers were needed to assist ambulance personnel in strapping the boy to a stretcher, Loni said.
There were never signs of abuse, and police never responded to the apartment for any other types of problems, Loni said. "They were under a lot of pressure and burden because of the situation," he said. "We never had a problem there."
But on June 9, police received a 911 call from Ski Wysocki, Dorothy Spourdalakis' younger brother. He and the boy's father, Minas, had rushed to the apartment when they couldn't reach Alex's mother or the godmother and caretaker, Jolanta Skrodzka, by phone.
After kicking in a locked bedroom door, the men discovered Spourdalakis and Skrodzka semiconscious in Alex's bedroom, where the boy lay dead, prosecutors said.
In a letter found in the apartment and in statements to authorities, Spourdalakis, 50, and Skrodzka, 44, spelled out a pact to kill Alex, who they believed received subpar treatment from medical providers and was suffering after his most recent prolonged illness, officials said.
According to prosecutors, the women allegedly gave Alex an overdose of his prescribed sleeping medication; when he remained alive several hours later, Spourdalakis used a kitchen knife to stab him four times — twice in the heart — and slit his wrist.
She then gave the knife to Skrodzka, who killed the family cat so it would not end up in a shelter after they were dead, prosecutors said.
The women had met at a family wake in 2000 and remained close despite Skrodzka being in the country illegally on an expired visa, Loni said. They requested in a letter that their bodies be cremated and the ashes spread in Michigan's
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