Cache County parents accused of abusing son had recently raised money for him
Cache County, Utah — (KUTV) The Cache County parents accused of abusing their 7-year-old adopted son had recently conducted a fundraising campaign to help take care of the boy they allegedly mistreated, 2News has learned.
A GoFundMe page created in June 2016 in Ogden, where the family lived at the time, raised more than $13,000 to help the boy get into treatment to deal with some behavioral issues.
Craig and Paulette Boersma, who were arrested in Hyde Park earlier this month but have not been charged, are accused of locking the boy in a basement and depriving him of food, water, and access to a bathroom.
On the GoFundMe page, they wrote a long, emotional plea asking for help. They described the trouble they had been having with their foster son -- whom they later adopted -- and his dangerous behavior as a result of his troubled past.
In the post, the couple said they were basically out of options. They asked for money to get the boy into a neuropsychiatric hospital and then into a treatment program.
"If the help doesn't happen now, he may never be able to process the trauma he has been through," the couple wrote. "He may never stop hurting himself and others. He may never have the tools to heal."
The Boersmas later posted numerous updates, talking about the boy's progress and how optimistic they were with his improvement. In one update, they wrote, "Our son is amazing!! I am so proud of his progress."
The couple's GoFundMe campaign was discovered through an Internet cache search, but the original page had been taken down Wednesday evening.
