Chrystal Venator has many security features around her home: surveillance cameras, special locks on the doors, and a bell on the front door so she knows when it’s in motion.
These safety features are not to keep strangers out. They are to keep her son in.
Eleven-year-old Stalen is autistic and non-speaking and could wander without warning from supervised care. This would effectively put him in danger, since he has “no sense of safety,” Venator said.
“I don’t think people realize how quickly something can happen,” she said. “It doesn’t take 30 minutes. It’s a matter of going to the washroom, opening the door to let the dog out, answering the front door while he’s figured out the lock at the back door.
“We don’t know that he has figured it out until he has figured it out, and he is on the run.”
It is a constant fear for Venator and why the death of Parker Wells, an autistic and non-verbal boy in Calgary, resonated so deeply with her.
Eleven-year-old Parker disappeared from his day home on July 16. Trained searchers, police officers and volunteers spent almost two weeks looking for him before police found his remains.
WATCH | Families behind the push for change:
Advocates in N.B. call for change after death of Calgary boy
Following the death of an 11-year-old autistic boy in Calgary, parents in New Brunswick would like more planning for vulnerable people who wander away. » Read More
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