CALEB DURIG - 8 Months - Troy (N of Dayton) OH

Troy OH ---- The parents of an 8-month-old found dead Monday morning have been
charged with felony child endangering.
Tara Durig, 27, and Jason Durig, 29, of 1251 Hilltop, are in the Miami County
Jail, Troy Police Capt. Joe Long said.
Police are calling the death of the infant suspicious. The boy’s body is at
the Montgomery County Coroner’s Office, where preliminary autopsy results
are expected Tuesday, July 27, Long said.
A call to Miami County 911 at 11:42 a.m. reported an 8-month-old was not
breathing, he said, adding the mother called 911.
Police are looking into whether the parents have been investigated for child
abuse previously, Long added.
“We had sufficient evidence to charge child endangering, pending the outcome
of the autopsy and further investigation,” Miami County Prosecutor Gary
Nasal said Monday afternoon.
Monday night, neighbors of the couple were holding a vigil for the child, who
they said was named Caleb. Angela Byrd, 36, said the couple made a living
“scrapping,” or collecting junk metal to sell at a scrap yard. She said
their pick-up truck overloaded with junk was a familiar sight around the neighborhood.
She said she helped the couple move in.
“I thought they were good people,” she said.

A Miami County couple was taken to jail, after police found their 8-month son dead, inside their apartment. Police said the call for help came from Hilltop Drive at about 11:45 AM on Monday, by Tara Durig, the baby's mother. Police charged Tara Durig and her husband Jason with child endangering and took them into custody. Neighbors gathered outside the home at 9 PM on Monday, to honor the memory of Caleb Durig.

They
brought stuffed toys, candles, and flowers. Right behind the makeshift
memorial, was the bright glow of crime scene tape, a harsh reality of
what had happened inside the apartment that day. Many of the people gathered outside the home for the vigil had never even met baby Caleb before. Amber Temple organized the memorial service after hearing about the tragedy. She said Caleb's story broke her heart. "8 months old, I think about it and I want to cry. I want to cry now," said Temple, a mother of two children. Prosecutors approved charges against the couple based on what they
found inside the apartment, but declined to release details. Court records indicated that it was not the first time Durig was in trouble with the law. In 2007, court documents showed Durig was charged with Child Abuse and Endangering, involving another one of his children. Neighbors say the couple kept to themselves, but they could not ignore the noise coming from Apartment 2. "It's
pathetic that I can sit outside and hear that baby cry for three hours.
2-3 hours on end, while they're sitting outside with their doors
closed. Doors, blinds, everything closed. No baby monitors nothing,"
said Kelly Bruner. Another neighbor Meagan Jones said she heard Tara Durig complaining about how much her baby cried, on Sunday night. "They
were outside smoking cigarettes, and the last comment I heard Tara make
the last time I saw her last night was, I'm sick and tired of Caleb's
crying. Something needs to be done about it," said Jones. Many neighbors told us they felt guilty, because they had never spoken up, and tried to help baby Caleb. "If
you see something that's not right, if you see someone struggling, we
need to be responsible and help them, there are many places you can
call," said one neighbor, during the vigil.
Neighbors also
wanted to know why was the couple had been allowed to keep the 8-month
old baby, after being accused of hurting another child 3 years ago. "Miami
County Children's Services should have been involved. No matter what,
they should have been involved with that," said Bruner. Meantime,
Troy police were parked right outside the apartment on Monday night,
protecting the property until a search warrant could be served.

At his 2007 sentencing for scalding a one-month-old boy, Jason E. Durig
pleaded ignorance.
“I didn’t know what to do,” Durig told Miami County Common Pleas Judge Robert
Lindeman. “What I am guilty of, basically, is being inexperienced.”
Now Durig and his wife, Tara, are both charged with child endangering in
connection with the death of their 8-month-old son Caleb on Monday.
“His nose is like completely clogged with blood,” his mother Tara told a 911
dispatcher on Monday. “We don’t know what happened.”
The Miami County Coroner’s Office ruled his death a homicide, finding that the
boy died from multiple blunt force trauma, said Troy police Capt. Chris Anderson.
Anderson said authorities don’t know how long the boy had been dead when his mother called 911.
Miami County Municipal Judge Mel Kemmer set cash bonds at $50,000 each Tuesday.
No additional charges were filed Tuesday afternoon after the autopsy. County
Prosecutor Gary Nasal said the case was still under investigation.
Tara Durig called Miami County 911 at 11:42 a.m. to report that Caleb was not
breathing, according to Troy Police Capt. Joe Long.
When the call starts, a male voice, presumably Jason Durig, says “he’s cold.”
Tara Durig tells the dispatcher that her husband is performing CPR on the boy.
She tells the dispatcher that they last checked on him about 10:30 a.m. and
the boy was fine. Later, her husband said the boy wasn’t breathing, she said.
“Can they do anything?” Tara Durig asks. “He’s not blue yet.”
Jason Durig was in state prison July 2007 and was released in November 2008
for convictions of child endangering in the scalding case, plus unrelated
charges of tampering with evidence and theft, said JoEllen Smith,
spokeswoman for the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction.
Efforts to reach Miami County Children’s Services were unsuccessful. However,
Ann Stevens, spokeswoman for the Montgomery County Department of Job and
Family Services said child protection officials are limited by both
resources and legal jurisdiction.
“We cannot keep a case open indefinitely,” Stevens said. “We don’t have a
police state. You can’t just have a government agency involved in your life forever.”
During Jason Durig’s sentencing, the judge noted that the burns occurred “at
least one to two days” before doctors examined the boy.
Durig told Lindeman that the remarks in the medical report were “not true” and
that he called the child’s pediatrician for guidance, who told him to take
the child to Children’s. Instead, the Durigs took the boy to Upper Valley
Medical Center near Troy because they didn’t have gas money to get to
Dayton, Durig told Lindeman.

Yes, the neighbours should feel guilty. What sort of people hear a baby in distress and do nothing? I'm FF sick of vigils.

New details about how 8-month-old Troy baby died have left the
neighborhood horrified. Detectives said they found baby Caleb dead in
the family's apartment on Hilltop Drive July 26, 2010. Court
documents said that the baby's room had spots of blood, and that Caleb
had dried blood, bruises and bite marks on his body. His parents, Tara
and Jason Durig are now facing child endangerment charges in relation to
the death. Neighbors said they could sometimes hear the baby
crying for hours as the Durigs sat outside, but it appears no one
contacted authorities. Experts say that's a lesson to be learned. "My
advice is just make the phone call. It's better to err on the side of
the child, make sure everything's okay," said Ann Stevens, Montgomery
County Job and Family Services. "You don't need to prove that child
abuse has occurred, but if your inner voice is telling you something is
wrong, chances are there is something wrong." Stevens said you
can call your local law enforcement agencies if you have any suspicions
of child abuse. In Montgomery County, you can call Children Services at
224-KIDS.

Angela Byrd, who lived next door to the Durigs, is so haunted by Caleb’s death Monday that she wants to move.
“I can’t wait to get out of here,” Byrd said. “I walk to my front door and
there is the memorial and you are reminded of it every day.”
But Byrd and her other neighbors are haunted by something else. They saw
evidence that the 8-month-old boy was physically abused and did nothing.
“We can’t explain how bad we feel,” Byrd said. “Everybody in the neighborhood saw parts of it.”
That’s not uncommon, according to Art Jipson, a sociology and criminal justice professor at the University of Dayton.
“Neighbors are often aware,” Jipson said. “It’s loud. It’s not something that’s easily kept under wraps.”
In Caleb’s case, Byrd’s daughter saw the baby with a v-shaped mark on his forehead and a black eye just days before he died.
Police investigating his death, ruled a homicide by multiple blunt force
trauma, saw ligature marks around his neck, adult bite marks on his face
and legs, and plenty of bruising. His parents, Jason and Tara Durig are
in the Miami County Jail on felony child endangering charges.
“It’s just hateful,” Byrd said. “I didn’t know the baby, but the baby didn’t deserve this.”
But often, there is an unwillingness to believe a friend or neighbor could
be capable of child abuse. People also worry about retaliation, and
don’t want to poke what can be perceived as the business of others, Jipson said.
“People don’t want to be perceived as the nosy neighbor,” Jipson said.
The irony is that police and other authorities need those reports to know
when to intervene — even in the case of Jason Durig, Caleb’s father, who
served 16 months in state prison for a prior child endangering.
In that case, Durig scalded another son who was a month old at the time
and is now in the custody of Jason Durig’s family. But the prior
conviction isn’t probable cause to investigate simply because the Durigs
had another child, Jipson said.
Plus, child endangering convictions are so numerous that officials can’t monitor everyone, Jipson said.
“It would simply clog the system,” he said.
Jennifer Justice, bureau chief for the state’s Child and Adult Protection Services section, agreed.
“We don’t knock on doors randomly,” Justice said. “A prior conviction
doesn’t rise to the level that we would monitor someone’s future behavior.”
Justice said children’s services agencies have plenty of success stories, in which people learn
to control their emotions and become better parents. She also noted that
state law emphasizes reunification of families, whenever possible.
“Research tells us that children do better in their own families,” Justice said. “It’s always the first goal, if possible.”
But above all, people who suspect abuse should report it, Justice said.
“There has to be an allegation of abuse or neglect,” Justice said. “That’s when we have the ability to intervene.”
Ann Stevens, spokeswoman for the Montgomery County Department of Job and
Family Services, said investigators have seen more severe injuries than
they used to. In part, this might be the added stresses on families in
the worst economy since the Great Depression.
Another factor, Stevens said, might be the transient nature of modern society.
People move more frequently, leaving behind family, and have fewer
long-term ties to neighbors.
“You’re not going to have people to lean on,” Stevens said. “People feel very isolated.”
Byrd said the same thing about her neighbors.
“If they had just said ‘we need help,’ we could have helped them,” Byrd said. “I’m trying not to cry.”

The parents of an 8-month-old are scheduled to stand trial Sept. 14 in the death of their son.
Jason Durig is charged with murder and child endangering, while his wife,
Tara, faces permitting child abuse and child endangering charges.
The parents called paramedics July 26 to say their son Caleb was not breathing.
A police investigation found evidence indicating abuse.
Jason Durig is accused of choking, beating and biting the toddler.
Jury selection is scheduled for Sept. 14 in Miami County Common Pleas Court.

Jason Durig, accused of causing the death of his infant son last summer, was found competent to stand trial Monday, Oct. 25.Durig and his wife, Tara, will go on trial Dec. 14 in Miami County Common Pleas Court. The trial is expected to take about four days, said Robert Huffman, Jason Durig’s attorney.Competency deals with whether a defendant has the mental capacity to understand courtroom proceedings and to assist with his defense.Jason Durig, 29, is charged with one count of murder and one count of child endangering.Tara Durig, 28, is charged with permitting child abuse and child endangering. All charges deal with the death of 8-month-old Caleb, who died from multiple blunt-force trauma. The Durigs called 911 at 11:42 a.m. on July 26 and said the boy was not breathing. Tara Durig told a dispatcher that the boy’s nose was full of blood. She also said that they had checked on the boy around 10:30 a.m. and he was fine.But police at the scene said the boy had likely been dead at that time, noting “this was not what appeared to be a fresh death,” according to a police report. There was blood on the floor around the baby and blood was splattered on his crib rail, according to an affidavit.

A Troy father admitted to a Miami County judge Monday that he beat his infant son to death. Jason Durig , who once claimed he was insane, now pleads guilty to murder and child endangering. Durig's crime shocked his Troy neighborhood in July, when his 8-month-old son Caleb was found beaten to death. Investigators said not only was Caleb covered in blood and bruises, he also had adult bite marks on his body.


Durig originally entered a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity. He's now scheduled for sentencing on January 24, 2011. He faces a mandatory sentence of 15 years to life for the murder charge and between two and eight years for child endangering. Durig has a dark history when it comes to kids. He served time for burning a child in the past, which raised questions about how he was allowed to be around baby Caleb. Durig's wife, Tara Durig, is facing charges of permitting child abuse and child endangering. Her trial is scheduled for December 14th.

A Miami County mother was found guilty of crimes that led to the death of her infant son.Tara Durig pleaded no contest to charges of permitting child abuse on Monday in a Miami County courtroom.Durig was scheduled to go on trial Tuesday in Troy in connection with the death of her 8-month-old son, Caleb, last July.She faces up to ten years in prison when she is sentenced in January.Durig's husband, Jason, pleaded guilty last week to charges of murder and child endangering.