THE TRIAL OF THE RADITAS

This news is now almost one-month-old, but it serves as a follow-up to the previous post that accents the need for interprovincial information links when cases of concern appear on two or more provinces.

Emil & Rodica Radita

ALEX DIED AT AGE 15, WEIGHING 37 POUNDS.

The defense position offered by the lawyer for Mrs. Radita was that Rodica and Emil Radita may be guilty of poor diabetes management for their son Alexandru, or even for failing to provide the necessities of life, but that is not murder. Both Radita, 53, and her 59-year-old husband, Emil, plead not guilty to a first-degree murder charge in the May 7, 2013, starvation death of the 15-year-old boy. In a body that was a skeletal horror that weighed only 37 pounds, Alexandru died of a bacterial infection secondary to his malnutrition and untreated diabetes Type 1.

On the day that he died, his parents told fellow church members that a miracle had happened. They are members of the Romanian Apostolic Pentecostal church on Bowness Road in Calgary. One member, Marius Ciltan was on the stand and told the court that he received a call from another friend. "Did you hear what’s happened in the Radita family?’ The child was dead and he raised up…was resurrected.” The friend said more. “The child was dead, and now is alive. Go there and you’ll see what’s happened.'”

Ciltan then said that he had called Emil, Alex's father and he asked, "is it true what I hear about Alex?" Emil allegedly responded, "I don’t know, go there and pray with my family.”

Ciltan went to the family's home and found Rodica and Alex's seven siblings were praying. They told him Alex had been dead but was now alive but they were praying because he was still weak and needed God to make him a strong body. He prayed with the family and then asked to see Alex. Ciltan testified, “She asked me ‘are you sure you want to see him’, I said yes,” so they went to the bedroom. 

He was shocked when he saw Alex's condition, he asked Rodica if the boy was alive, to which she responded that he was. Ciltan described what he saw. “He was very skinny. The skin colour was white and he was not moving.” Ciltan related that Rodica told him, “two hours or one hour ago he was breathing,” and that she had seen Alex blink and that he’d had a bowel movement.

The family then went to their church where one of Alex's siblings testified to the twenty-five assembled people that God had worked in Alexandru, that he had died during the night and God resurrected him. A group of fifteen people then went to the Radita residence at 8:30 pm and prayed for Alexandru.  Nicolai Brancu is the pastor of the church and he testified that he went directly to the boy's bedroom and was shocked at the sight. “When I saw him I know it’s a big problem…I knew he was not alive anymore,” Brancu said. “I told Emil you have to call the ambulance.”

At 10:07 pm that night, Emil at last called 911. Paramedics found the boy wearing a T-shirt and a diaper. Dr. Gofton, a medical examiner stated that Alex had no usable teeth, and he was covered in dozens of ulcers, a necrotizing ulcer on his neck, that left one of his salivary glands exposed. He had what appeared to be gangrene on one of his toes.. Alex’s body was filled with infection and had bacteria throughout his body from his kidneys to his adrenal glands, his spleen and blood stream. His neck muscles had liquefied.

But here is a kicker.  Alexandru had been diagnosed with diabetes at the age of three while the family still lived in B.C. When it was suspected that his parents were not treating the diabetes, the boy had been removed from them. A judge later returned Alex to his parents. The family then subsequently moved to Alberta and their Child and Family Ministry records did not follow them. They were off the radar.