GALIEN TOWNSHIP, Mich. (WOOD) — Four school staff members are facing misdemeanor charges for allegedly failing to report suspected child abuse up to two years before a student was found starved next to a set of railroad tracks in Berrien County.
Three Oaks Elementary School principal Heidi Clark, special education teacher Diane Balling, teacher Sherrie Bender and guidance counselor Matt Cook of St. Joseph are all charged with two counts of failing to report suspected child abuse or neglect in 2015 and 2016.
The prosecutor’s office said all four administrators had information about the boy’s weight, aggressive behavior in obtaining food and physical well-being up to two years before he was found.
A railroad worker discovered the boy on Aug. 11 near railroad tracks in Galien Township, near the Michigan-Indiana border. The boy lived nearby and had been reported missing the evening before, authorities said.
Authorities took the boy to a doctor who found his condition was life-threatening, according to the Berrien County Prosecutor’s Office. The doctor said the boy weighed 47 pounds, with each rib showing. He was dehydrated, bruised, had a cut lip and old cigarette burns, the doctor said.
According to prosecutors, the child told authorities his father and stepmother kept him from eating. He said he ran away because he “was tired being treated like a dog and he didn’t think he would reach his 13th birthday.”