The Misery Machine - Why Are Ohio Parents Killing Their Kids?

Episode Date: August 16, 2021

Continuing our coverage of child deaths and CPS failings, Drewby and Yergy this week journey to Ohio to discuss three extremely shocking cases of child abuse - one of which could result in a death penalty conviction.  A very special thank you to Levi for supporting our show as our highest tier patron! Support Our Patreon For More Unreleased Content: https://www.patreon.com/themiserymachine Buy Us A Coffee! https://www.buymeacoffee.com/miserymachine Join Our Street Team! https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1HfRUPQhB6LOqVupZm92OdV5rLDQcIMpHudmUZwt0C24/edit?usp=sharing Levi's Adoption Fundraising Page: https://gofund.me/d658a3a7 Join Our Facebook Group to Request a Topic: https://t.co/DeSZIIMgXs?amp=1 PayPal: https://www.paypal.me/themiserymachine Instagram: miserymachinepodcast Twitter: misery_podcast Discord: https://discord.gg/kCCzjZM #themiserymachine #podcast #truecrime Source Material: https://www.fox19.com/2021/03/29/loved-ones-nylo-lattimore-wish-his-body-be-found-what-would-have-been-his-th-birthday/ https://www.fox19.com/2021/03/07/search-continues-james-hutchinson-nylo-lattimore/ https://www.fox19.com/2020/12/13/man-arrested-after-girlfriend-stabbed-death-walnut-hills-court-documents-say/ https://www.fox19.com/2021/04/12/boyfriend-middletown-woman-accused-killing-year-old-son-returns-court-monday/ https://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/2021/05/10/mother-tried-relinquish-custody-children-before-6-year-old-sons-killing/5026466001/ https://www.facebook.com/nyteisha.lattimore.5 http://www.blackgirltragic.com/home/2021/1/1/nyteisha-lattimore-ohio-mother-found-stabbed-to-death-son-missing https://www.springfieldnewssun.com/news/timeline-what-happened-in-the-case-of-ohio-6-year-old-killed-and-dumped-in-ohio-river/RWBH52F2J5BZHP3PQGIGV6AAMA/?fbclid=IwAR1kgs--ZB77nRbAXbdDT1MprHHQjA3QCNqOiUf_azrhuYq6iqokE8LcGNI https://www.cleveland.com/crime/2021/03/father-in-custody-after-5-year-old-boy-killed-parma-police-say.html https://www.cleveland.com/crime/2021/03/parma-man-accused-of-killing-5-year-old-son-previously-pleaded-guilty-to-child-endangerment-in-2017.html?fbclid=IwAR3xy_5iedcT6I1RQO8O2DNFqbyQji0CWg6HtkiUOML5xUFZ5sHSu6pUei8 https://www.cleveland19.com/2021/04/09/parma-man-accused-murdering-year-old-son-be-arraigned-friday-morning-graphic/ https://www.news5cleveland.com/news/local-news/oh-cuyahoga/medical-examiner-confirms-cause-of-death-of-5-year-old-parma-boy-allegedly-killed-by-father

Hi, I'm the Misery Machine. I'm here again. And I'm Drewby. And we've heard your requests. We are continuing our series on overlooked child deaths by state. And this week we're focusing on Ohio. Yeah, we chose Ohio because other than Maine, Ohio is the state. I've spent quite a bit of time in my life. And when researching these, I came across some pretty horrific cases. We cover a lot of really tough stories on this show. But some of the cases that I found, in my opinion, probably some of the worst we've ever covered. Some that should have made national attention, and I'm surprised that they haven't. And if you're listening on YouTube, if you please hit like and subscribe, I want to say thank you to everybody that in one month got us from 10,000 to 20,000

subscribers. Thank you. Thank you so much from the bottom of my heart, because helping to raise our platform, we're able to shine a light better on these cases that have been unfortunately overlooked by the media. And we want to pick up the slaps. So if you haven't done so yet, hit like and subscribe, share this video with somebody who'd like it, so that way we can better get these cases out. But without further ado, what the hell is going on in Ohio? After our coverage of child deaths in our home state of Maine, we received an outpouring of comments suggesting that we shine a late

and other such cases occurring around the United States. We are facing an epidemic of crimes against children that needs to be immediately addressed. After many suggestions, we've decided to cover the state of Ohio, where I actually have family and spent many, many, many vacations playing in the Good Year Heights neighborhood of Akron. To start, we have a tragic case that was suggested to us via Instagram. A Middletown, Ohio woman drove to a Preble County wildlife area to abandon her six-year-old son and possibly his siblings. But in an even more tragic turn of events, she ran over him and killed him when he tried to get back into the car.

year old Brittany Gosney was charged with murder, abuse of a corpse, and tampering with evidence for the death of her child, James Robert Hutchinson. Her boyfriend, 42-year-old James Hamilton, was charged with abuse of a corpse and tampering with evidence. James Hutchinson was a first grader at Rosa Parks Elementary School. According to his principal, Tracy Neely, quote, James was a happy and joyful soul who loves school. On the days he was in class, he would give hugs to all of his teachers as he walked into school. A fun memory I have is the way his face would light up when he won the lucky lunch tray. First graders can find joy in just about anything.

I will always remember his bright joy, end quote. According to reports, Gosney said she was under pressure from Hamilton to get rid of James and his two siblings, ages nine and seven. The 29-year-old mother drove the three children in a 2005 Dodge Caravan to rush-run wildlife area in Somerville, Ohio. at about three in the morning on Saturday, February 27, 2021, to abandon them. Middletown, where Gosney and her family resided, is a city located about 35 miles north of Cincinnati, which is about a 30-minute drive south of Rush Run.

Gosney admitted taking James to Rush Run in Preble County, where she placed him outside of her minivan. Gosney said she was going to leave him in the park. However, the young boy attempted to get back into the vehicle, and Gosney sped off, dragging James for a distance. Gosney left the park and returned about 30 to 40 minutes later and found James in the middle of the parking lot with a head injury. He succumbed from his wounds and died cold on the ground. According to reports, two of James' siblings, a boy and a girl under the age of 10 were in the vehicle when James was struck,

and it appears she may have been trying to leave all three of her children. Gosney stated she picked James up, put him back in the minivan, and drove back to her residence where she took him into the house and placed him in an upstairs bedroom. believe that sometimes Saturday night after the other kids fell asleep, Gosney and Hamilton drove James' body at the Ohio River near Lawrenceburg, Indiana. At some point, a concrete block was tied to the first

grader's body before they threw it into the water. The following morning, Gosney reported James missing since 9 p.m. the previous evening. She told police, she just woke up and he's gone. She said he was wearing a plain red shirt in Batman pants and they had been searching for several hours. However, that evening

there was a turn of events. Middletown police released a statement that Gosney and Hamilton had been arrested and charged in James's death. After days of rain and large amounts of melted snow, they stated that they were searching the river, but the river was very high and treacherous. So they would not be disclosing the exact location in hopes of avoiding another tragic incident. During the arraignment in Middletown Municipal Court, Gosney's bond was set at $1 million, and Hamilton's bond at $105,000. though we did find some reports that claimed it was 2 million and 750,000 respectively.

Prior to James' death, Gosney and Hamilton have been accused of hog-tying the young boy and his two siblings up by their hands and feet, putting cloth in their mouths and leaving them that way for hours. They're also accused of removing the hard drive from video cameras in their home and removing rope, which could affect their attempts at pleading insanity, which they are trying to do. Gosney told psychologists that she was removed from her father's custody by the Hamilton County Department of Job and Family Services when she was 12 years old after it was discovered that she was the victim of repeated sexual abuse. She was then placed in fostering group homes throughout Ohio and Kentucky until she was emancipated at age 18. Gosney told the psychologist that she had given birth to four

children, though her first child who she gave birth to at age 12 was put up for adoption because she was quote, too young to raise them. Gosney also stated that she previously tried to relinquish parental rights over her children before her son's death and stated that she faced, quote, a number of barriers, end quote, in trying to give up custody of her three children. Butler County Children's Services had not been involved with Gosney

before James's death, but has since assumed custody of her two remaining children. That is crazy that she was trying to give up, if this is correct and she's telling, the truth and was trying to give up custody of her children, James' death could be avoided. Absolutely. Though, from what we've researched, there seems to be no paper trail of her trying to do this. Now, that doesn't mean it didn't actually happen, but we couldn't find any sources confirming that at the time. So whilst researching James's case, we came across another story equally as tragic out of Cincinnati,

of Ohio. About two months prior to James' death was the death of Nilo Latimore. The three-year-old was originally reported missing on December 4th, 2020. His mother, 29-year-old Nitisha Latimore, was stabbed and killed on December 11th. 20-year-old Deshawn Brown, Nitech's boyfriend, has since been charged in connection with her death. Nitech's body was found by a security guard in a body bag that Brown had purchased on eBay, along the Ohio River near the Purple People Bridge on December 12th. The guard said he first thought the bag had Halloween props inside, but with one touch, he knew the contents were indeed real. Brazenly, Brown took an Uber to the bridge and claimed the bag contained clothes. Police found a stroller nearby that the family member say belonged to

Naitisha, along with a bloody Paw Patrol blanket. According to the police, Brown, then put Nilo into the Ohio River alive. Cruz have been searching for his body ever since. DeShon Brown is now facing the death penalty and is currently being held on a $1 million bond. Natasha Latimore was a certified nurse in Cincinnati and was focused on being a terrific mother to her son. In one of her last Facebook post, she wrote,

quote, All I want for Christmas is my son to have a good Christmas and I got another job interview tomorrow. I hope I get it because I want my son to have a good Christmas. It's all about the kids and I want my son to be happy for Christmas, end quote. This is really sad. You had told me that you saw on her Facebook the last post that she made was about how much she loved Deshaun Brown. Yes.

So it's just so random how this came out of nowhere. I mean, granted, this was a local case. It didn't get a whole lot of coverage, but I couldn't find anything regarding Deshaun Brown having problems. I'm not even sure he had a prior criminal record. So for him to go and kill Naitisha and then throw her son alive into the Ohio River, it's just absolutely unthinkable. Yeah, it's absolutely insane. Her family went through their apartment and apparently there was blood everywhere on the shower curtain. It appeared to have human tissue. This is the one that just confuses me the most on, you know, obviously we've covered many killings where there's no motive. Somebody is

just a sick, evil person, but I see something like this and I'm just like, what was the breaking point? What did this? How does somebody just wake up one day and do this? It's so sad. And as of the date of this recording, neither James Hutchinson nor Nilo Latimore have been found. Their bodies are both still missing. So a few warnings ago, an article about our next tragic case popped into my Facebook news feed. So on March 25th, 2021, a five-year-old autistic boy named Jack's Ponomarenko was killed in his home on Russell Avenue in Parma, Ohio. So Parma is a city in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, which is the same county that Akron is in, and it's located on the southern edge of Cleveland. According to police, the boy's father, Matthew J. Ponomarenko has been charged

with his murder. According to the 911 call released by police, Pottomarenko admits to killing his son with a baseball bat, claiming he was hearing voices. It has been noted that Cuyahoga County's division of children and family services had closed out an investigation into Pondamarenko and had not been in contact with the family since 2019. The county had worked with the family on parenting skills and in 2017, Pondonarenko had a child endangerment case filed against him. The charges relate to a July 20th, 2017 incident where police found Ponamarenko and his then one-year-old son naked near Pleasant Lake Boulevard and York Road in Parma. The elder Ponomarenko's mother had called police and said her son was having a mental breakdown

and was swearing and running after people who drove past him. Ponomarenko left Jacks in the middle of York Road and yelled at random people. He would later tell officers he had taken meth, psychedelic mushrooms, and PCP. Police arrested him and took him to an undisclosed hospital for treatment. D.CFS placed Jaxx in the custody of an undisclosed relative at the time of the incident. Pondamarenko eventually pled no contest to child endangering and was found guilty. He was ordered to pay fines. Jacks's maternal grandmother spoke at Pondomarenko's arraignment and requested no bond. However, the bond was continued at $5 million. The medical examiner listed the cause of Jacks's death

as blunt impacts to the head with skull and brain injuries. Jacks has been described as an amazing child who learned to communicate using a tablet. And the really unfortunate thing about this is that's all we could find out about the victim. We couldn't find anything at all, really, other than that. And again, we are trying to do better because true crime fails to humanize victims so often. But what makes us difficult is the media just wants to talk about the perpetrator. and at the end of the day, we can find very little about this poor young boy that died in an absolutely brutal fashion. And arguably, I couldn't find a ton about any of our victims.

And that was the really sad part about it as well. And this is what happens. A lot of people don't realize cases like this happen in so many states all over the country. I mean, we covered Maine. and, you know, a lot of people brought all these cases to our attention, and, you know, some of these things, you wonder why didn't they make national news? I mean, some murders do make national news that aren't as brutal as some of these, and you just wonder, you know, why do these fall through the cracks? But we ask you again, why do you think this is happening? Please let us know in the comment section below, whatever the case may be, this is horrific and it needs to be addressed and stopped immediately.

you know, more needs to be done to protect children in our most vulnerable population. And I know a lot of people have a lot of theories. People have said drugs. People have said lack of social services. People have said corruption in CPS. Some people say lacking care towards like one's family and taking as seriously as previous generations. These are just comments we've gotten. Let us know what you think down below. Now, I know you haven't lived in Ohio, but you have family there. Is there anything? about Ohio that seems conducive to this compared to other places? Not that I've seen, because really, I've only spent time in Cleveland and Akron. I haven't seen it. I mean, it's definitely vastly different than Maine. It is a lot more urban in the places that I have been, but there's nothing about it that I have noticed in particular. That would be like, oh, this is why people are throwing your children in a river or leaving them in parks or

hitting them with bat. So obviously, we are not from there. So this is as much as we can say. So Ohio natives, we need your help in trying to make sense of things like this. You know, we heard you and we agree this is happening in more places than just Maine and the more research we do is the more horrified we are by all of this. And if we're going to make sense of this and make any sort of positive difference going forward as a nation, we need to better identify the causes and why these things happen. So we need your help with that down below in the comments section. I mean, one thing I should add, when we did our main case, we had people commenting that

Maine needs to bring back the death penalty. Well, Ohio does have the death penalty. Yes, they do. And that did not dissuade people from killing their children or partner's children in very horrific ways. And what might even... Or killing their partner. We're talking about Naitisha Latimore. Exactly. And what might be a little more crazy about that, only one of these people we covered are up for the death penalty and that's Deshawn Brown. The others are not up for the death penalty. So where is the use of the death penalty there? Like you said, it didn't stop any of these. So I don't know. We're just as confused as you are, but if you have any idea, I'd love to hear from you. Absolutely. So if you're appreciated this episode and you're listening on YouTube, if you

could hit like and subscribe, this is the best way to help our channel grow and it doesn't cost you anything at all. Leave a comment below with your case suggestions. We read as many of them as possible. And if you'd like us to cover your state next, please link us articles to some of these abuse cases

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