When the boys were born she’d refused vaccinations. “They are human beings who have agency just like the rest of us,” she told the doctor. “They should be able to choose what goes into their bodies.”
After the divorce, she’d moved to Elum from the Seattle suburbs. The boys were three and five.
Because of their lack of vaccinations, homeschooling was the only option. She tried for a while, but soon she was letting the boys run wild through the woods.
Later, she told the sheriff it simply hadn’t occurred to her to ask Benjamin where his little brother was.
I don’t like the connection being drawn between anti-vaxxers and carelessness, as they are anything but careless, but these things — children dying out in “the jungle” of being away from their protective nest of home — happen with tragic regularity.
No vaccination is a killer too. Thank God my mother got us vaccinated early when the polio came out. So, she didn’t think to look EVERYWHERE for the boy? Pathetic! Interesting!
Oy vey. There’s a line between raising ‘free roaming’ children and ‘neglecting the children.’ This one had clearly not bothered to find out where the line was. Poor kids.