The Short, Sad Life of Christian Choate

Christian Choate/ Riley Choate

It's a good thing I can usually control myself because I'm not sure what I'd do if I ever came across sub-humans like Riley Choate and Christina Kubina, the father and stepmother of Christian Choate.

The details of this child's life are enough to make me cry, and I don't cry easily. The pair are accused of locking Christian in a five foot high dog cage the last year of his life, beating him and of denying him food and water. He wasn't in school because Kubina, was claiming to have home-schooled him and assigned essays like:

"Why do you want to play with your peter?"

"Why do you want to see your mother?"

"Why can't you let go of the past?"

"What does it mean to be part of a family?"

His answers in documents obtained by the Indiana Department of Children's Services spoke of his despair. He wondered why nobody liked him and of how he wanted to be liked by his family. He wondered when someone was going to check on him and give him food and something to drink, and he wrote of a desire to die.

Although he had a sister, Christina, their father threatened to harm her if she ever told anyone, so it would be years before she did.

One night in April 2009, Christian vomited after being let out of his cage, so his father beat him unconscious and put him back in. His died during the night, and his sister discovered his lifeless body the next morning. He was only thirteen. Their father put him in a shallow grave behind the house, covered it with a thin layer of concrete, put a slab of wood over it and moved the family to Kentucky where Christiana wasn't allowed to go to school or use the phone.

Two years later, Christian's biological mother awoke and called the police because she hadn't heard from her son in a while. This prompted an investigation and Christina told about what happened to her brother. Authorities were led to Riley who led them to the grave and admitted to burying the boy but not to killing him.

Riley Choate and Christina Kubina have been charged with murder, battery, neglect of a dependent, moving a body from a death scene and failure to notify authorities of a death.

This calls for the need for reform on behalf of all the Christian Choate's out there to see that this stops happening. The school districts should set up a task force to make surprise visits to the houses of kids who are being home schooled and others that have fallen off the radar.

Either way, it's a good thing I am not going to be working in the jail these two are going to because I would want to do things to them that would cause me to get sent there myself. The only consolation is that they will be going there and that felons don't tend to take too kindly to child abusers.

It's the least we could do for a boy who only wanted to be loved.