The Misery Machine - The Case of Caterina Whitten

Starting point is 00:00:00 Katarina Katie Witten was born on September 20th, 1995 in Siberia, Russia. At the time of our story, she was 29 years old and was living in Lowell, Arkansas, located more than 200 miles northwest of Little Rock in the Ozarks near the Missouri border. She was one of six disabled children who were adopted by David Witten in his late wife, Cheryl, who was a nurse. According to David, Katie was a gift from God to her family and friends. she was born in Siberia with a very rare genetic anomaly, Fraser syndrome. She became very ill at birth.

Starting point is 00:00:38 When she made a near miraculous recovery, we adopted her. Katie was blind, intellectually disabled and autistic. Although she had limited ability to communicate, we felt her love. She had a dazzling smile and an infectious laugh. Despite her limitations, her example led to other children finding families and improving their own lives. Her orphanage had been reluctant to allow Americans to adopt their children. After news came to them that Katie was thriving in America, the orphanage allowed all their children to be adopted. Friends of ours in the U.S. marveled at our adopting

Starting point is 00:01:18 a child with many disabilities. Seeing our success with her, they decided they had the courage to adopt a special needs child also. Jesus sent Katie to Earth for a purpose. Frazier syndrome is a disorder that can affect the fetus starting before birth. Characteristics include eyes that are completely covered by skin, malformations of the eyes, missing eyebrows or lashes, fusion of the skin between the fingers and toes, among many other things. I have personally read accounts from a few people with Frazier syndrome, and they say they only have one kidney, not all of them, but quite a few of them. WebMD claims that there are under 5,000 people in the U.S. alone with Frazier Syndrome,

Starting point is 00:01:59 but this contradicts an interview done with activist and filmmaker, Kyle Ann Grendes, who is the director of the documentary, Frasier Syndrome, and me, who said in 2022, there were only 250 known cases of Frazier Syndrome. Either way, whichever number is correct here in 2025, this is a disorder that is very rare and is not well understood by the average person or caregiver. Please keep this in mind because this very much impacts the story later on. Now, one picture of Katie exists on the internet that we know of anyways. In the picture, she appears to be sitting on the porch of a white shingled house

Starting point is 00:02:37 wearing a pink t-shirt with a white headband holding back her long brown hair. In this picture here, you can see how Frazier syndrome affected her eyes. Sadly, nothing is known about what Katie's life was back in Russia, and we only have very small clues as to what her life was like here in America with her adoptive family. As a child, she enjoyed swimming. main and playing on her swing set. Or into those that knew her, she enjoyed nice weather and never wanted to come inside. Even though she was blind, Katie enjoyed playing baseball through the Miracle League,

Starting point is 00:03:10 which is an organization that removes barriers that keep children of mental and physical disabilities off the baseball field. In 2016, Katie graduated from Heritage High School in Frisco, Texas. Family stayed in Texas until 2023, when the Wittins decided to pick up and move to Arkansas. However, this happy facade was cracked at 606 a.m. on January 3, 2025, when emergency services responded to a call on Concord Street and Lowell. It was the Witten residence. When they entered the brick one-story home, they bore witness to an unimaginable sight.

Starting point is 00:03:46 The floor was littered with soiled adult diapers, trash, and dog feces. Cockroaches could be seen skittering about the home, which indicated a severe infestation. They were even found inside the dishwasher in the microwave. According to reports, there was only one working toilet and a portion of the house was flooded. Allegedly, this was caused by an overflow in the home's septic tank. This caused the floorboards to rot. In addition, the kitchen sick encounters were stacked with dirty dishes that were coated in mold. The fridge wasn't much better.

Starting point is 00:04:22 It was filled with spoiled food and moldy items. First responders found five disabled adults in the home ranging in ages from 23 to 29 years old. There were two men with Down syndrome, one man with Apert syndrome, one autistic man, and a woman who was described by first responders as intellectually disabled. It was noted that one of the adults was wearing an adult diaper that had not been changed in some time. However, the worst was still yet to come. According to reports, when police entered one of the bedrooms, they found 29-year-old Katie lying on the bed that was positioned against a wall near a window.

Starting point is 00:05:01 She was dressed in only a blue shirt and an adult diaper. Her legs were pointed toward the wall and her head was dangling off the bed. She was dead and first responders felt that the positioning of her body seemed a bit odd, almost as if she had been staged in that position. According to the probable cause affidavit, police requested an essay kit be administered due to discovery made in another bed. bedroom. In that bedroom, police found a bed that was covered in dried brown fluids. Those same fluids covered the box spring in the walls. Some of those fluids were thought to be blood.

Starting point is 00:05:39 Aside from the filthy bed, the only other item located within the bedroom was addressed. Other reports have also indicated that this wasn't a separate bedroom, but rather the bedroom that Katie was located in. As far as my research has taken me, the results of the kit have not been released. This case is still somewhat recent, so if you're watching this later on and find information about it, please let us know down below. We'll be sure to update you on that piece of things when we find out if we find out. When questioned by police, David Witten told them that Katie had always been healthy and didn't take any medications. However, all of that changed on Christmas Day of 2024. According to David, she sunk to the floor and wouldn't move and shared that

Starting point is 00:06:25 Katie had allegedly gone through this phase several times in the past. By phase, David claimed that Katie would refuse food and would lose a lot of weight. He told the police that to combat this, he would provide Katie with what he described as double calorie and double protein boosts. After doing so, Katie would supposedly return to normal. If it didn't exactly go into detail about what he meant by this, if what he was saying was even true, we can only assume that it meant feeding her multiple nutritional drinks like an insurer or something like that. However, he said that after this time of giving her a double calorie and protein boost, something seemed a little bit different. According to David, after about a week of feeling better,

Starting point is 00:07:11 she, in his words, suddenly stopped dead in her tracks while walking across the room. David said that he put her to bed and when she wanted to get back up, she would normally do so by propping herself up with her elbow. However, in the days of leading up to her death, she wasn't able to get herself out of bed at all. According to David, the night prior he had gone to check on her. He picked Katie up, fed her some milk, and then set her back down on the bed. He said that she then made some noises. David went to check on his daughter in the morning, he noticed that she wasn't breathing.

Starting point is 00:07:45 Then that he dialed 911 for help. Given the fact that it seemed apparent, by David's account, that his daughter was in need of medical attention, he was asked why he hadn't called 911 prior to her dying, to which David agreed with the investigators that he probably should have done so. In addition, when searching the house, police were unable to find any of the protein boosts that David had claimed he had been giving Katie. This was odd because if he had a tendency to give her double doses, surely he would have at least a couple on hand, or the bare minimum, some empty bottles around. According to to a press release from the Lowell Police Department, which was published on their Facebook page

Starting point is 00:08:25 the very same day, 73-year-old David Witten was arrested on six counts of endangering the welfare of an incompetent person, one count for Katie, and one count for each of her adopted siblings. Negligent homicide was later added to his list of charges on January 6. David was placed in the custody of the Benton County Jail, but was later released on a $25,000 bond with an expected court date of February 10th. Adult protective services hospitalized the surviving siblings, and thankfully, they were all medically cleared. Ben County Chief Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Joshua Robinson shared the following thoughts with reporters. He said, the initial reaction is just like anybody else. It's one of sadness and just kind of shock. You hate to see people living in poor conditions.

Starting point is 00:09:14 You hate to see somebody that loses their life, especially at a pretty young age. body was transported to the Arkansas State Crime Lab to be examined. At autopsy, it was discovered that Katie was malnourished and had suffered bites on her head from the cockroaches that infested her home. I honestly don't know what would be more horrific, being bitten by cockroaches, or not knowing what was biting me because I couldn't see it. There was also an abrasion found on her forehead, but it was unclear what exactly had caused it. Reports of the grim discovery shook the small town of Lowell and a few residents came forward to talk to reporters on the matter. Neighbor Anthony Kirby told K-HBS News.

Starting point is 00:09:58 I mean, to me, it sounds like a really sad story on both sides, to be honest. Another neighbor, Kyle Fairfax, told reporters, you know, there's a few aspects of it. One, you never know what's going on in any of the other houses that are on your street. Another is you don't know what everybody else is going through. You know, I feel sorry for everybody in this situation. He added that there should be a greater emphasis on social welfare for our most vulnerable. And he felt compassion for David, saying that his neighbor, in his words, simply bit off more than he could chew.

Starting point is 00:10:36 As of the date of this recording in May of 2025, there have been no new updates to where David Witten's case stands. A search of the Benton County Jail's inmate roster shows no results for David Witten, which means that he's likely still out on bail awaiting trial. As with all cases that have yet to be prosecuted, David is considered innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. And I think we can all agree that if anything, this whole case is tragic for everybody involved.

Starting point is 00:11:05 It's clearly tragic for Katie who lost her life in such a horrible way and for her siblings that had to suffer in such disgusting conditions. It is understandable that maybe David needed help after his wife passed away, but why didn't he ask for help? Why didn't he get Katie to a hospital before it had gotten to this point? According to reports, David told the responding police officers that he had no idea that first responders could provide care for a patient in their homes. He also claimed that he didn't want to overuse the emergency room.

Starting point is 00:11:39 The thing is, even if David didn't have his wife there to support him, the couple did have other children other than their children. other than their adopted ones with special needs. So where were the safeguards and the extra resources? Katie's obituary lists 13 siblings in total. That means that David had seven other children that weren't living in the home at the time. In fact, rather than calling 911, David called two of his adult sons.

Starting point is 00:12:04 One of his sons named Samuel told police that he had recently seen Katie in a wheelchair being pushed by one of her adopted siblings. So with that in mind, there were other adults well aware of what was taking place within the Witten home and the help that was so dearly needed. As we've mentioned time and time again on our channel, disabled people are at a significantly higher risk for experiencing mistreatment, including at the hands of their caregivers. Unfortunately, this is because they are less likely to report or be believed, and this is a problem everywhere, even in our home state of Maine. According to a report released by Maine's DHS

Starting point is 00:12:46 there were over 2,100 allegations of mistreatment targeting people with intellectual disabilities in 2024. And these are just the allegations that were reported. We can only estimate how many could have gone unreported, or how many involved disabled people who were unable to report it themselves. In one such instance, parents Jonathan and Jeanette Larkin sued Lee residential care of Hampton, Maine, after their adult son was subjected to what they referred to as repeated in severe physical, sexual and emotional abuse over the course of seven years. According to reports, the lawsuit alleges nine counts including negligence, fraudulent concealment, intentional infliction of emotional distress and negligent supervision, training and retention.

Starting point is 00:13:37 The Larkin son, known only as J. Ellen Court documents, is a nonverbal man with severe intellectual disabilities. The document claims that employees at the facility would bribe the residents to engage in sex acts with each other with a promise of pizza which they never even got. With regards to J.L., he was strangled and forced to insert items inside of himself, including a spray can and a TV remote. According to a 2016 study conducted by the University of Michigan, it is estimated that as many as 40% of disabled women experience essay or physical violence in their lifetimes, and that more than 90% of all people with developmental disabilities will experience essay. Other forms of mistreatment can include withholding medical care, social security payments,

Starting point is 00:14:26 housing, among others. And I'm sure that you're all aware, there are many shady individuals out there who like to take in people with special needs, whether they be disabled or elderly, simply to collect a check each month, sometimes multiple individuals at once. You know who you are. To me, this is just another form of human trafficking that needs to be addressed. And to be very clear, this is not to stigmatize care workers, but people who take in more people than they can handle, only to not give them the care and resources that they need purely for money.

Starting point is 00:15:02 If this is something that you want us to cover more frequently, please reach out to us and let us know, especially if there is a case in your area that you feel did not get enough attention. Katie's memorial service was held on February 1st, 2025 at the Springdale Adventist Fellowship Church in Springdale, Arkansas, with Pastor Rick Aldridge officiating. Details regarding Katie's final resting place is unclear, but her obituary was released by a company called Cremation Services of Arkansas. which would lead one to assume that she was possibly cremated. In close, we would like to leave you with a message that was left in Katie's guest book on January 24th, 2025. It was written by Ken and Lisa Jenkins.

Starting point is 00:15:47 It reads, I remember the first time I saw Katie. Cheryl was standing in the lobby of the Burleson SDA Church, and I held her for a few minutes. She was incredibly lightweight for her age. A few years later, she swam in my pool until she was shot. shivering and her lips turned blue. She adamantly did not want to get out. Such a sweet soul. Looking forward to heaven where she can see everything. So one thing that we talked about off air that you felt really strongly about is that you felt that they should do, I have to call it an essay kit because YouTube doesn't like the R word on any dead woman that foul play is suspected. So maybe you want to go in on that.

Starting point is 00:16:30 it's necessarily foul play. Suspicious death, I think I could say, because I would say that 80's death was suspicious. Her body was possibly staged. In doing this, you know, it's really easy DNA to come up with. And it's relatively inexpensive to do the test. Right. And you also talked. Why not do that?

Starting point is 00:16:51 And you also talked about wanting to do it in cases of nursing home deaths. And there was a specific reason why you felt that way and going on that. So I feel pretty strongly about it because only 30% of elder essay cases are reported. And this is because sometimes folks have difficulty communicating. They have a fear of backlash. You know, their families put them in this facility for whatever reason, a number of reasons. Maybe they need long-term care. And they're scared of what the workers will do to them if they speak out about it.

Starting point is 00:17:27 There's a lack of awareness sometimes in different age groups that, maybe what happened to them was essay and just like overall embarrassment of this happening to you. I mean, that happens in all age groups, the shame of having something like that happened to you. Apparently, and I'm on a website right now from Sokolov Law, around one in five nursing homes will mishandle essay cases. And that's something a lot of people don't want to admit is a thing. and people don't really want to accept the fact that that could happen to your loved one. And obviously, if your loved one is still alive and says something to you,

Starting point is 00:18:07 most people are going to take it seriously. But if it's after they pass, I could see a lot of situations where it goes unnoticed or it's not looked into. Or one thing that we're forgetting here is oftentimes a lot of these patients suffer from Alzheimer's, dementia, something of that case, so they're not going to report it. Yes. Or if they do report it, it's blamed on the dementia. It's blamed on the Alzheimer's.

Starting point is 00:18:35 And it doesn't even need to be elderly people. It could be just somebody who's in a coma. I mean, we've all seen, not all of us, but many of us seen Kill Bill. What happened there. So let's unpack the situation that led to Katie's death a little bit more. You had two elderly people who wanted to make an impromptu group home. Let's just call what it is. without any in-home care services that they were contracting out.

Starting point is 00:19:02 And then you have the death of the wife. And so overall, what's the ethics and responsibility of choosing to do something like this? When you're in your 70s, there's no other safeguards in place in case something happens to you. And then 50% of the care power here is gone. I'd even say more than 50%. She was a nurse. Yeah, no, that's fair. And he wasn't.

Starting point is 00:19:28 She's a nurse. From what it sounds like to me, just in the very limited research we had, because there were not a lot of resources on this case. It sounds like these folks were very involved in their church. They, oh, do you got Penny? Yes, she was very loud.

Starting point is 00:19:43 She's being really loud. So they were very involved in their church. They were doing this because they thought this was God's plan for them. They didn't have any, as you said, resources lined up as they were aging. And these adopted children of theirs, their adult children at this point, ranged in ages from 23 to 29. Some lived with them younger. It's really unclear how long some of the folks lived with them.

Starting point is 00:20:10 I don't know if they were adopted as adults because there just wasn't information on that. But I don't think it's ethical. I don't think it's ethical to not have in-home care. Like you have to plan for this. You're adopting disabled people. You know you're going to age. Especially if you're taking on people who are going to need care into their adult years. If you think about it, some folks have a parent or grandparent.

Starting point is 00:20:36 They don't want them to go to a long-term care facility. So they choose to have them at home with home health aids. That's generally like a one-to-one ratio. We're talking five people, excuse me, six people here in the home. There were six adult adopted siblings. who were disabled. And we just have David. Yeah, I was going to bring up the fact, my grandmother.

Starting point is 00:21:01 So I have a, I come from a medical family. There's a lot of nurses and a couple doctors in my family. And even despite this, we contracted within home care services. So somebody is always with my grandmother. And, you know, she can, she's not non-ambulatory. And sometimes she has two people in there with her. So, and this is just for one woman without severe complications. We're talking about something here where there was multiple people who needed specialized care in the home.

Starting point is 00:21:35 And you don't even have somebody who is a registered nurse in there anymore after David's wife died. You could argue that it was unethical even before David's wife died, that you needed like some professional service in there. and that all these people is too much for just one nurse to handle. Like think of group homes that we know. We have friends that are direct support professionals that work in a group home setting. It's not just one person there. There's a team of people there. Yes.

Starting point is 00:22:05 Like helping out with clients. And especially if you're working with multiple clients at once, you need the extra support in case something happens. Nobody can handle it all on their own. Right. If there's an accident, if someone becomes violent, if someone slips in the shower, you know, it's pretty hard to pick up adults sometimes. Like, you need people there.

Starting point is 00:22:26 Exactly. And for those wondering, we tried to look up the state laws for this. I, it was vague. So I couldn't tell if they were violating any laws by doing something like this. I think what bothers me, I'm sorry to interrupt you. I think one thing that really, really bothers me about this is like David didn't seem to know that he could get in home care. He even said that he couldn't He wasn't aware that first responders could come into his house to help his daughter

Starting point is 00:22:53 Like it's just it's just strange it's very strange to me

The Misery Machine - The Case of Caterina Whitten

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