Last month, Tiffany Moss was sentenced to death for the abuse of her step daughter, Emani Moss. Tiffany starved Emani to death, and burned her body in a trash can with her husband, Eman Moss. Eman was sentenced to life in prison. Justice was served for Emani Moss, but the contrast between the sentences handed down in this case, and the ones handed down in the similar case of Patsy and Albert Christy, show one thing: that the court only cares about you if you don’t have a disability.

On January 10, 2019, Patsy and Albert Christy plead guilty to wreckless homicide for abusing and neglecting their son, Logan, for 20 years until their abuse lead to his death. Logan was kept in his room with a padlock on the door. The window to his room was shattered, the ﬂoor covered with glass and feces, since he was locked in and unable to use the restroom. Logan had been starved, and kept from water. At the time of his death, he had also contracted pneumonia, most likely from the winter air coming through his broken window. For all of this, Patsy and Albert Christy were each only sentenced to 5 years in prison with the option for parole by the following April.

Tiffany and Eman got an entire day in court with a jury. Patsy and Albert were added on to the daily criminal docket. Tiffany was sentenced to death, and Eman was sentenced to life in prison. Patsy and Albert Christy were both sentenced to 5 years in prison with the option for parole. Both couples abused their children until their abuse killed them. Of course burning Emani’s body after she died would bring a harsher sentence to her parents- the crimes are not exactly the same- but why would Patsy and Albert Christy only be given 5 years and the option for parole? The answer is simple: Logan had Down syndrome, and therefore, the court saw his life as valueless.

Often, having a child with Down syndrome is seen as a burden, and the abuse of these children is often overlooked. People see it as acceptable, and even sometimes actually pity the parents. Any parent can consider their child a burden, whether they have Down syndrome or not, but Down syndrome does not cause a child to be a burden. That is an old fashioned thought from the days when people with Down syndrome were sent to mental asylums and nursing homes, if kept alive at all. Let’s imagine, though, that having a child with Down syndrome truly was a burden- it still doesn’t excuse abusing your child until you kill them. Logan would have even automatically received state beneﬁts to help him be more independent and start his life, but Patsy and Albert cancelled them. If they truly saw him as a burden they would have gladly let Logan get those beneﬁts, but they wanted to abuse him, and because of people often seeing the lives of people with Down syndrome as having less value than those without Down syndrome, they knew they could.

Some may argue that because Patsy and Albert Christy were uneducated, the abuse they inﬂicted on Logan was understandable. That is faulty reasoning. Patsy and Albert knew that to keep someone alive, you need to provide them with food, water, and adequate shelter, and they had the ability to provide these things for themselves and their other children. I saw Patsy and Albert Christy, and unknowingly sat next to their other children, at their sentencings- they were far from malnourished, dehydrated, or dead. They could have put Logan up for adoption, they could have put him in a state funded group home, they could have even let him leave their house and go literally anywhere else on his own just to get him out, but they didn’t. They, again, wanted to keep Logan padlocked in his glass and feces covered room, malnourished and dehydrated.

Justice was posthumously obtained for Emani Moss. For their abuse, her step mother will die from lethal injection, and her father will die in prison. Logan’s body was not burned in a trash can, but after being abused for 20 years until their abuse killed him, his mother and father will serve only 5 years in prison, unless they are granted parole. The parole board has decided not to look at the Christys’ cases until April of 2021, two years into their sentences, but Patsy Christy is up for Shock Parole on May 9, 2019. If granted, Patsy will go home, having only served several months for killing her son. The Christys knew what they were doing, they thought they could get away with it, and thanks to the prejudice of the courts, they are.

Attend Patsy Christy’s Shock Parole hearing in protest:

May 9, 2019 34 S Main St, Winchester, KY 40391 11:00 AM EST.

Write a letter to the judge in protest of Patsy Christy getting Shock Parole:

Hon. Brandy O. Brown

Circuit Judge P.O. Box 277 Richmond, KY 40476

Contact your local news station and mainstream news stations, inform them of the situation, and provide them a link to our page for reference: www.savedownsyndrome.com/logan-christy/logan-christy

Patsy Christy: Possibility of Shock Parole

Hon. Brandy O. Brown

Circuit Judge P.O. Box 277 Richmond, KY 40476