Paul Ferguson listens to the judge sentencing him to 30 to 100 years in prison for his role in helping his mother, Shanda Margaret Vander Ark (pictured inset, via Michigan Department of Corrections), murder his brother, Timothy Ferguson. (Screenshot: WZZM)
Paul Ferguson, 21, testified against his mother, Shanda Margaret Vander Ark, 44, about her “sadistic” murder of his brother, Timothy Ferguson, 15, but that cooperation did not carry enough weight with a Michigan judge on Monday to save him from a lengthy prison sentence.
As referenced in court, Ferguson served as the “enforcer” while the three lived at the same home.
“I think you’re just as bad, if not worse,” Judge Matthew Kacel told him, sentencing the young man to 30 to 100 years in prison with 592 days credit for time served. Ferguson had pleaded guilty to child abuse for his role in Timothy’s death, but the judge had the option to go above or below guidelines in sentencing.
Vander Ark is set to serve the rest of her days behind bars for starving and torturing Timothy to death, having been sentenced to life without the possibility of parole.
As established at trial, Timothy died in a small closet under the basement stairs — what amounted to his room — and his mother called him “pathetic” amid his final moments.
“You knew exactly what you were doing,” Kacel told her in the sentencing hearing last month.
He described the litany of abuse that Vander Ark subjected Timothy to. That included sleep deprivation, ice baths, forcing him to puke up food, giving him strict time limits for toilet use, forcing him to sleep in a closet, forcing him to eat bread with hot sauce, putting Tabasco in his mouth, making him do wall sits, and putting him under incessant monitoring.
The judge denied that this was negligence or something of the sort. Vander Ark had a goal, he said.
“Without him, you have no one to torture,” he said.
She hid the child from his grandparents and even another child at the home. She made sure to close the garage doors when making Timothy clean up the area without pants. When she relented on a threatened punishment to make the victim drink salt water, it was not because it was wrong, it was because she did not want to give him an “excuse” to sit on the toilet from diarrhea, the judge said.
“That was your justification,” he said. “Not that it would hurt him.”
After Timothy died, his brother agreed to testify against their mother but pleaded guilty to first-degree child abuse because he too played a role in the mistreatment. Texts between mother and the elder son was used against her at trial.
The prosecution stuck to the terms of the plea agreement and asked for the judge to stay within the sentencing guidelines. But while acknowledging that a presentencing report described Ferguson having a traumatic upbringing, prosecutors pointed to analysis stating that Paul Ferguson possibly has antisocial personality disorder, and that if it was not addressed, he would be a danger to the public moving forward.
The state called it “frankly scary” on Monday that Ferguson seemed predisposed to abuse Timothy independent of Vander Ark.
The defense painted Vander Ark as the primary abuser, arguing that as a law school graduate with top academic performance, she had a greater capacity than her son to understand the rightness and wrongness of what she was doing. Ferguson and his other siblings were victims of their mother dating back years, living in an environment of abuse and imposed secrecy, the defense argued. Ferguson himself was isolated from peers, and had no meaningful contact with people outside his home, the defense said.
Once the gravity of the situation sank in, Ferguson showed remorse, confusion as to how he could have done this, and recognition that it was wrong, the defense said.
Kecel said, however, that texts between Vander Ark and Ferguson showed a collaborative effort in abusing Timothy. Available evidence showed Ferguson being described as a bully who enjoyed tormenting his brother.
He said he did not believe that Ferguson was sorry. Instead, the 21-year-old defendant is sorry about being caught, the judge maintained.
Kecel emphasized that Ferguson had a job, could have brought food home to Timothy, could have sought help, and could have gotten him out of the home.
“And you chose not to,” Kecel said.
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