
I need an answer. I need an answer as to why someone would leave an eight-year-old boy in a freezing garage, to the point where his internal body temperature drops below 78 degrees.
This is the story that has ripped through suburban New York City tabloids, and is now currently making national news. An eight-year-old boy, Thomas Valva, died on January 17. His father, 40-year-old NYC cop Michael Valva, along with the cop’s fiancee, are charged with the kid’s murder. The temperature outside that garage was a bone-freezing 19 degrees. The kid had no chance.
And someone will say, “Well, where were the warning signs? why didn’t Social Services snap the kid up at the first sign of danger? Where are the good Samaritans and hotline callers who could have prevented this?”
Guess what. This ain’t Law and Order: SVU. Shit like this happens all the time, and kids fall through the cracks. And it’s the worst people who end up on the news blotter the next day. The father. The aunt. The guardian. The one in trust. The one who everyone counted on.
I really, really wish I didn’t see more of these stories. I wish I never saw ANY of these stories. As a survivor of child abuse, I totally wish that someone would swoop down and haul these pieces of filth away.
This isn’t the first time a New York City child was murdered by neglectful parents. Thirty years ago, a six-year-old named Lisa Steinberg was brutally beaten to death by her adopted father Joel Steinberg, a New York City attorney. I remember the story and how it played out in the New York tabloids, how radio station disc jockeys would be so choked up about the horrific murder of a six-year-old child that they would interrupt the usual rock and roll and play instead a Christian song about the evils of child abuse.
And then there’s the story of Kenneth White. In 2014, White’s cousin Tiffany Van Alstyne strangled her five-year-old cousin and left him to die in a snowy ditch behind the family home, then told police that two masked intruders broke into their home and stole the child.
Just think about that for a second. How fucking depraved do you have to be to kill your own baby cousin … and then blame the murder on non-existent strangers to throw everyone off the trail just long enough for any hope of rescue or survival to be lost.
When Kenneth White died in 2014, I did what many people around my area did. We lit a candle in the window. We turned on a porch light and let it glow all evening. We will do it again all weekend, in memory of a young boy who never got a chance to experience another Christmas, or another day of kindergarten, or another sunrise or another snowfall or another birthday or another rainy day or another day.
And we hope that someone out there will get the message that child abuse and child endangerment has to stop. Taking frustrations out on the most defenseless, innocent, unprotected children is worse than anything.
And if there’s one thing I could ask… is that we find a way to end child abuse and infanticide. We end the excuses now. We find help. We offer support. We put aside judgment and offer assistance. We don’t treat Child Protective Services as some sort of monster that comes and rips children away from families for the tiniest of infractions. We don’t treat emotional support groups as some sort of admission of awful parenting. We look towards protecting children, rather than perfecting cover stories of what happened to children.
I don’t want another candlelight vigil.
Because another candlelight vigil means that another young soul was taken to Glory.
Thomas Valva deserved better. You know it and I know it.
And if you’re having too much trouble raising your kids … and you think that the only solution out there is to beat the shit out of them or torture them until they die …
Call someone for help.
Help for the kids and help for yourself.
“And if you’re having too much trouble raising your kids … and you think that the only solution out there is to beat the shit out of them or torture them until they die …
Call someone for help.
Help for the kids and help for yourself.”
I don’t know about other states, but I found this older list of resources & crisis nurseries–i DO know that here in MN, there are quite a few crisis nurseries around the state.💖
For folks who don’t know what a crisis nursery is, they’re a place you can drop off your child(ren) for a few hours/up to a few days, when you’re having a crisis/feeling overwhelmed/need a break & need support.
The crisis nursery connects the parent to resources & has well-trained staff who care for the kiddos in the meantime (often starting with food, selecting a brand-new pair of jammies & a blanket for the child to keep, and then a warm bath (jammies & blanket are for after the bath).
Fwiw, I first learned about them from a friend who was a single mom raising two boys. She talked about how SHE utilized the Minneapolis Crisis Nursery (MCN) a few times when she was overworked & overwhelmed, and when she had no one she could call to help take the boys for a few hours so she could get some sleep & rest/reset herself. She explained that the MCN had been a lifeline that kept her from harming herself or her boys when she was at the absute end of her limits.
MCN’s website: https://www.crisisnursery.org/
http://people.wku.edu/darbi.haynes-lawrence/crisis_nursery.htm
“I need an answer. I need an answer as to why someone would leave an eight-year-old boy in a freezing garage, to the point where his internal body temperature drops below 78 degrees.”
No good answers, here, sorry Chuck💓💞💗💖💔
I’m sorry you went through what you did. I, too, remember Jessica–i was a tween when she was murdered–and as someone who works with (and adores my work kiddos💖) kids on the Spectrum, this murder is heart-wrenching.
My mind runs toward thoughts of toxic cop-culture, embedded/combined with toxic masculinity, just judging by what I read in those NYP stories–that sort of ego can clash pretty hard with the sweet, but sometimes rigid, & *very literal* thought processing of kids who are on the Spectrum. A grownup who’s all about “Respect” in his household is likely to have massive problems understanding that his kids LITERALLY don’t process information in the ways he expects them to. Those poor little dudes💔 they were probably trying their absolute HARDEST to follow their Dad’s rules, do what he said, and make him proud–and there was NO way they could possibly succeed.
Those poor, sweet, babies.
Dear god, they both deserved better, and there is no reason for Thomas to be dead right now. His poor brother, too, just SO much uggggggh.
Whenever I see a story like this it reminds me how lucky I was to be able to survive it. Of course, like so many of us, the psychological damage lasts much longer than the physical, but that’s where the whole “adult” thing comes in. Those of us who were beaten so savagely have to take measures and get help so that we do not visit those same horrors upon others, whether children or intimate partners. We can’t excuse an abusive adult because they were abused as a child. We had no control over our situation as children, but we damned sure are in a position to do something about it as grown ups. Ol’ Michael Valva needs to be put away for a very long time.
Much credit to you for having that perspective in adulthood. I hope you can break the cycle. From all accounts, my mother’s parents weren’t very nice people and she and my uncle had it pretty bad. My mom chose to break the cycle. Can’t say we weren’t spanked – it was the ‘70s and ‘80s, times were different – but we were never beaten nor abused – physically, verbally or emotionally. My nieces, raised by my uncle… I don’t think it was a là bad as what my mom and uncle got growing up but it wasn’t as good as my sister and I had it. Good luck.
I’ve said this elsewhere, but I take no more credit for the work I’ve done than someone who puts their hand on a hot stove until it blisters and then decides it hurts too much to leave it there. I changed because change was necessary, but at least I now know that the motive for change isn’t as important as just taking the action.
Dealing with your own pain is half the story. Objectively, it is the easier half, as perverse as that sounds. The much harder part is consciously changing your attitude and behavior to stop the cycle. That takes strength and character and for that, I commend you.