Pennsylvania Father Pleads Guilty to Subjecting 12-Year-Old Son to Fatal State of Perpetual Suffering lawandcrime.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from lawandcrime.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
I can t believe it s been a year already, she said. It feels like I read about it just yesterday, and it s still heartbreaking to hear what happened to that poor boy.
On May 26, 2020, Annville Township Police and members of the Lebanon County Detective Bureau found the body of 12-year-old Maxwell in his second-floor room. Both the bed and the victim s body were wholly covered in fecal matter, documents state. The door and its frame contained three metal hooks . to lock the child in his bedroom.
Police filed homicide charges against the victim s father, Scott Fremont Schollenberger Jr. and his live-in fiancée, Kimberly Marie Maurer, in September 2020.
A Lebanon father s grossly negligent behavior contributed to the death of his 2-month-old daughter, county prosecutors said.
Jack Ponicki Sr. was arrested April 14 on charges of involuntary manslaughter, aggravated assault and child endangerment, according to the Lebanon County District Attorney s Office. Officials said the child s unsafe sleeping and living conditions contributed to her death.
In June 2019, Ponicki placed his twin children down to sleep in a bassinet on top of an adult sized pillow in the 1100 block of Lehman Street, with several blankets and stuffed animals also in the bassinet. Ponicki is alleged to have claimed to have pulled a blanket up to the chest s of the infants and left them to go downstairs, officials said in a press release. Ponicki was later alerted to the cries of the sibling and found the female infant cold to the touch and face down upon the pillow.
For much of 2020, COVID-19 forced many people to remain at home, quarantined and isolated, to keep the disease from spreading.
Between late February and mid-March of 2020 hotline tips to ChildLine, Pennsylvania’s 24-hour hotline, fell from 17,693 calls to 9,068, according to data provided by the state Department of Human Services. When schools closed and daycares closed, child abuse reports to ChildLine in Pennsylvania and across the United States dropped precipitously, said Dr. Lori Frasier, a Penn State Center for the Protection of Children. The concern was that these mandatory reporters weren t there to see if children were being harmed.
Lebanon County Children and Youth services received 2,328 total reports of child abuse and neglect in 2020, according to county officials.
Annville resident Michelle Gerber said she still gets a disturbing feeling when she drives past the Schollenberger home.
In May, Annville Township Police and members of the Lebanon County Detective Bureau found the body of 12-year-old Maxwell Schollenberger in the second-floor room of the house on South White Oak Street.
Describing the alleged actions of the Schollenberger parents as disgusting, Gerber s morning commute takes her past the home most days. Yet even months later, she can t help but wonder if there was something she could have done to alert authorities to Max s condition. Was there something that I should have been looking out for? Maybe a clear sign that they were abusing this boy? she said. Was there something more I could do?