Note: Under no circumstances do we ever, ever condone or gloss over the horrors of a parent, Mother or Father, harming or murdering his or her child with autism. Not Gigi Jordan, not Dorothy Spourdalakis. Not yesterday. Not today. Not tomorrow.  That said, parents can snap. We are human. Even when we do something inhumane. I worry that the push to gloss autism into a "difference" has meant a lack of concern and real focus on the needs of families.  Between my three girls I have 60 sum total cumulative years of autism experience and exhaustion.  I want to know what happened to this mother  to turn her into a monster. Was she abusing him from birth?  Did his autism play a role? Her little boy was only 4.  Abuse and neglect is not new. Autism as an epidemic is just 25 years old.  Here, the two have overlapped. God rest this boy's young soul.

A Milwaukee woman suspected of killing her 4-year-old son with autism is accused of bounding him with belts and setting him on fire before his death, according to court documents.

Amelia Di Stasio, 23, faces a charge of first-degree intentional homicide in the killing of Antonio Di Stasio, her only child, KTLA sister station WITI in Milwaukee reported Wednesday.

According to a criminal complaint obtained by WITI, Milwaukee firefighters found the child's lifeless body, with his hands bound behind his back with several belts and a garbage bag over his head, in a bathtub after responding to a report of "smoke" at an apartment on the morning of Sept. 28.

"The majority of his body was burned," the complaint stated.  Read more here.