Creep of the Week - April 25, 1998
It used to be fairly easy to deny paternity. Even if the woman was the guy's girlfriend or wife, he could accuse her of infidelity and maybe even find a witness or two to support his claim. But the good old days of penis pointing are long gone. Today, DNA testing nails fathers to the maternity room walls as fast as Jimmy Carter building one of those Habitat Homes. "You da man," these guys are told, "Happy Father's Day!"
Skipping town, another traditional method for avoiding parental responsibility, isn't as easy as it used to be, either. Computerized databases and "America's Most Wanted Deadbeats" TV shows make finding a new identity, even in another state, as likely as finding a Michael Jackson Day Care Center. No, in today's high-tech world, fallacious fathers have to use the new technology to their own advantage.
Brian Stewart, from St. Charles, Missouri, is one of those creative kind of guys. When he was ordered by a court to pay $267 a month in child support for his newborn son back in 1992, he figured out a loophole in the system: No child, no child support! The more standard techniques for killing kids, like beating, choking or throwing out the window, were evidently too violent for Brian. Instead, he stole some HIV-infected blood from the medical lab he worked at, hid it under his lab coat, and injected it into his son while the boy was hospitalized with respiratory problems.
The son, now 7, was diagnosed with AIDS two years ago. At the time, according to his mother, he was near death with destroyed immune and digestive systems, incurable liver and spleen disorders, and a chronic fever of 105 degrees. He has improved since then but he still has to take ten different medications every day through a permanent tube in his abdomen, some of which have left him nearly deaf. The only good thing about his deafness is that he won't be able to hear what an asshole his father is.
The doctors could not explain how the boy got AIDS until the mother and her family recalled that Brian had told them he would never have to make the child support payments because the son wouldn't live that long. The cops arrested Brian this week and threw him in jail, where he remains in lieu of $500,000 bond. He is charged with first-degree assault, which could get him a life sentence, and the charges will be upgraded to murder if the boy dies.
As you might expect, Brian and his lawyer have made the obligatory statements: He is innocent until proven guilty. He has been tried and convicted in the press. The evidence is all circumstantial. The syringe was just part of the "Play Doctor" kit he was giving his son in the hospital. And wasn't Liberace lurking around the room that day?
Brian's right. He's been accused. If it turns out he didn't do it, I'll retract the Creep designation, apologize, and tell him he only looks like a deviant, child-killing slimeball. In the meantime, it seems very appropriate for Brian to receive his own injection of AIDS while he's in jail. The hard way.
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