HARRISBURG, Pennsylvania — A Pennsylvania couple accused of letting their 9-year-old disabled son starve to death pleaded guilty Monday to third-degree murder and other charges ahead of their criminal trial.
Jarrod Tutko and Kimberly Tutko face between eight and 20 years in prison on the murder count.
Prosecutors in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, had accused the Tutkos of keeping their son, Jarrod, locked in a third-floor room with no bed and lights, where he would often smear himself and the wall with his feces.
The Tutkos also were charged with abusing their 10-year-old daughter, Arianna, whom authorities said was found in a second-floor bedroom in a coma, just hours from death. She recovered and was removed from the Tutkos along with their four other children.
All six of the children had medical or developmental problems.
Courts had previously taken away four other children from Kimberly Tutko, police said. Those children were fathered by another man.
Authorities discovered Jarrod’s decomposing body at the Tutkos’ Harrisburg house on Aug. 1, 2014, approximately four days after his death. The door to his room was rigged so it could only be opened from the outside, police said.
He suffered from Fragile-X Syndrome, a genetic disorder that often causes learning disabilities and cognitive problems, and was only 3-foot-6 tall and weighed 17 pounds because of starvation, an autopsy found.
Kimberly Tutko initially told police she had not seen her son for several years before admitting she had seen him in the days before his death, authorities said.
The Tutkos had been scheduled to go on trial Monday in the Dauphin County Court of Common Pleas in Harrisburg, the state capital.