No charges for Texas parents over dead Russian boy | Inquirer News

No charges for Texas parents over dead Russian boy

/ 09:49 AM March 19, 2013

WASHINGTON – The US adoptive parents of a Russian boy will not be criminally charged over his death, a Texas official said Monday, after the three-year-old’s demise was deemed accidental.

Toddler Max Shatto’s body was heavily bruised when he died at a hospital near the west Texas town of Gardendale in January.

Claims by Russian officials that the boy, born Maxim Kuzmin, was tortured and murdered by his adoptive mother whipped up a storm of controversy less than two months after Russia banned US adoptions.

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But on Monday, Bobby Bland, the district attorney for Ector County, where Gardendale is located, said “there is no evidence to support holding anybody criminally responsible.”

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The local newspaper, the Odessa American, reported that Bland said a grand jury that looked into the case had found there was no evidence to indict the child’s adoptive parents, Alan and Laura Shatto.

Doctors determined on March 1 that the bruises were self-inflicted. “Based on all medical reasonable probability, the manner of death is accidental,” the Ector County Medical Examiner’s Office said.

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The coroner also noted that Max Shatto had a mental disorder that caused him to hurt himself.

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The autopsy concluded that Max – whose mother found him unconscious in the backyard and rushed him to hospital – died from a lacerated artery in his bowel due to blunt force trauma in his abdomen.

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Russian officials accused the US adoptive parents of doping the boy with “psychoactive drugs,” though the toxicology report found no drugs or medicines in his system.

On March 2 thousands of people, including activists from pro-Kremlin children’s advocacy groups, marched through Moscow urging authorities to ban all foreign adoptions and demanding the return of Max’s two-year-old brother, who is also being raised by the Shattos.

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TAGS: Crime, death, Russia

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