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Mother charged in tot's I-465 scare : Brizzi says chance that boy running on highway has autism doesn't excuse woman's actions

January 4, 2007
By Rob Schneider and Vic Ryckaert

rob.schneider@indystar.com

Marion County Prosecutor Carl Brizzi said that even if her child has autism, there's no excuse for a mother's lack of supervision that enabled a 3-year-old boy to wander onto I-465.

"Feces on the wall, eating out of the trash can is absolutely beyond simple housekeeping," Brizzi said. "It's more like a concentration camp."

Brizzi on Wednesday filed felony charges of child neglect against Nancy Dyer, 30, the mother of the toddler found running on the interstate near 56th Street on the Northwestside on Saturday.

State troopers who investigated the case said they were told by a social worker that the boy might be mildly autistic. But one of the boy's relatives said he wasn't.

Dyer, who is being held on a $3,500 bond, declined The Indianapolis Star's request for an interview. She is scheduled to appear today for an initial hearing in Marion Superior Court on four counts of child neglect. Each charge is a felony and carries a maximum sentence of three years in prison if convicted.

If her son has autism, Dyer could have been under enormous pressure, an advocate for families with autistic children said.

Susan Pieples, president of the Autism Society of Indiana, said she didn't know the family but that children with autism can be ingenious in figuring out locks. "They can be very fast, and they have no fear of danger."

Police said Damon Stewart, wearing only a dirty diaper and Superman T-shirt, was found on I-465 shortly before 9 a.m.. Motorists pulled the boy from the roadway.

About an hour later, State Police found Dyer's 2-year-old daughter, Gabrielle Stewart, with spaghetti sauce on her face, apparently from eating spaghetti she had pulled from the trash and thrown onto the carpeted floor while her mother slept, according to court documents.

Child Protective Service workers gave state troopers "the indication the child (Damon) may have a mild form of autism and that the mother thinks so also," said 1st Sgt. David R. Bursten, a spokesman for the State Police.

But a relative said the child doesn't have the disorder.

"Damon is not autistic," the boy's aunt, Kelly Quinn, told The Star.

Quinn said Dyer has told relatives that both children were evaluated for the disorder but don't have it.

Dyer and the children stayed with Quinn's family in Portage, Mich., for several days before Dyer moved to Indianapolis about three weeks ago. Dyer is about four months pregnant, Quinn said.

Police said Dyer was awakened when troopers knocked on her apartment door. When told her son had been found running on the highway, police said she remarked, "Oh, he got out again?"

Dyer told police she usually places boxes in front of her apartment door to prevent her son from getting out because he knows how to open the door locks.

Pieples, with the Autism Society, said a friend of hers nailed shut windows in her home to keep her autistic 6-year-old child safe after the child learned how to unlock the windows and crawl out onto the roof. The child liked to walk along the white lines on the highway, she noted.

Autism is a complex neurological disorder that can impair a person's ability to interact and communicate. It can be associated with rigid routines and repetitive behaviors, such as obsessively arranging objects or following specific routines. Symptoms can range from mild to severe.

When pulled to safety, Dyer's son had a "happy-go-lucky" attitude and looked like "the world was a great place," said Troy Crady, one of the motorists who stopped after seeing the toddler running down the right lane of the interstate.

Parents of children with autism often feel like "there is nothing I can do to keep my child safe, and I can't get any rest or take care of myself or anyone else because this child is so high-maintenance," Pieples said.

In court documents, police said Dyer's apartment was in disarray, her daughter was wearing a diaper full of feces and there appeared to be feces or dirt in the children's bedroom.

But finding feces on the wall of a home with an autistic child would not be that uncommon, Pieples said.

"When you hear there was a child found in a house with feces on the wall, you have one horrible picture," Pieples said. "But if you are someone within our community, you think, 'That poor woman.' "

Dana Stewart is a speech and language therapist who works with children with autism at the St. Vincent Pediatric Rehabilitation Center. She said neither the desire to escape from a home nor playing in feces is among primary identifying characteristics of autism.

According to police, Dyer had recently moved to Indianapolis from Florida and was living by herself with her two children.

Raising a child with autism alone would be a daunting task with a support network. "Without one, it's an impossible task." Pieples said.

If the boy has autism, Brizzi said, Dyer should have been even more vigilant in caring for and protecting him.

In 2005, Brizzi declined to file charges against the parents of an boy with autism who wandered away from a cookout and drowned in a Southeastside pond.

In that case, Brizzi said, the adults lost track of the child for an instant and the result was tragic.

Even though Dyer's children escaped serious harm, Brizzi said, her failure to protect them is a crime.

"But for the grace of God we wouldn't be talking about (Class) D felony neglect, we would be talking about something much worse," Brizzi said. "It's very fortunate that no harm occurred."

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Other metro-area incidents involving children who wandered from their parents