Many parents would start to search for their children even when they are missing for only several hours but a Harrisburg mom was unaware that her 8-year old son has died until the odor of his decomposing body became stronger.
Kimberly Tutko said that she started to smell an odd odor in their home on Friday night. She initially thought that the smell was that of a dead mouse in one of the rooms in the third floor but her husband, Jarrod Nicholas, instead brought back the dead body of their son Jarrod Jr.
The boy was apparently dead for four days and Jarrod did not immediately tell Kimberly about it because he was afraid and concerned for the other children in the house. The couple has six children including Jarrod, who was diagnosed with autism and had a serious mental disability caused by a genetic defect known as Fragile X Syndrome, which is associated with intellectual and behavioral disability.
"I said to him 'Why didn't you say anything?'" Kimberly said. "He said he was too afraid to say anything because of other kids in the house."
The mother says that she didn't find out about the whereabouts of her son, who used to stay in a room in the third floor, due to her duties of caring for other children in the family. The boy who died was primarily taken care of by his father.
Kimberly and Jarrod Nicholas had five other children aged 3, 6, 10, 12 and 13, some of whom also have serious medical conditions. One of the children is deaf and a daughter needs round the clock care as she was blind, in a vegetative state and requires feeding through a tube.
The neighbors said that they were shocked to learn of the incident. Michelle Landolfa, who lives near the Tutko home in Green Street, said that she did not even have an idea that children were living in the house.
"I've never seen kids. I've never seen them come out. I didn't even know that many kids lived there. It was very weird," Landolfa said.
38-year old Jarrod Nicholas was charged with child endangerment and corpse abuse Saturday morning for concealing the death of his son . An autopsy of the body is set on Tuesday to determine the real cause of the boy's death. The couple's other children were meanwhile brought to the Dauphin County's child welfare agency for custody.
