A 14-year-old boy, whom police in Louisiana found malnourished, injured, and living in a dumpy old trailer with his abusive father, is being returned to his mother here in Arizona.
Last week, a St. Bernard Parish constable went to the trailer park where the boy lived with his father, with the intention of evicting them. That's when police discovered the disturbing situation.
Neighbors say the teen weighed only 60 pounds when he was found and had injuries to his arms and foot that were never treated by a doctor.
The boy, police say, haden't seen a doctor in years, nor had he been to school.
Who needs school when the boy's father, 30-year-old Daniel Ballard, the person police say is responsible for the boy's condition, claimed to be home-schooling him the whole time.
The boy ended up in this hell hole after his mother, who lives in
Arizona but was not identified, sent him to live with his father in
in Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina.
Sending a kid to live with his father in the wake of one of the most tragic national disasters in U.S. history? What a great idea!
The boy's mother says she talked to the boy only rarely in recent years because his father often wouldn't let him use the phone.
Ballard was arrested on charges of cruelty to a juvenile and released on $25,000 bail.
The boy, after being treated at a Louisiana hospital, was returned to Arizona, where we have a laundry list of candidates for father of the year.
