Man arrested for allegedly pushing boy down flight of stairs

Times Leader ^ | 10/16/2003

[Born Conservative]

Posted on Thu, Oct. 16, 2003

Man arrested for allegedly pushing boy down flight of stairs
Associated Press

MARYSVILLE, Pa. - A man was arrested on charges that he assaulted the 9-year-old son of the woman he lived with, an attack that left the boy in a coma for more than a week and required emergency surgery, police said.

Corey L. Hammaker, 31, told police that the boy approached him on July 8 after having urinated in his pants, according to court documents. He told him to shower and change his clothes, and the boy was soon after found unconscious on the floor of the bedroom.

But when the Rye Township boy woke up from his coma after nine days, he told police that Hammaker had pushed him down a flight of stairs because he was angry that the child had wet himself.

Hammaker was arrested on Oct. 1 and charged with aggravated assault, recklessly endangering another person, endangering the welfare of a child and two counts of simple assault, state police said.

Five children lived at the home with Hammaker and Kathi Burkholder, the boy's mother, said Perry County Assistant District Attorney Chad Chenot. The couple has been together for about five years but is not married.

The boy, who also told police that Hammaker burned his feet with lit cigarettes, was taken to Holy Spirit Hospital after his mother came home and called police. He was later transferred to the Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center for emergency surgery.

Hammaker was released from Perry County Prison on $50,000 bail.

Information from: The Patriot-News

[dawn53]

Hmmm. Didn't mention if he was home-schooled. (sarcasm, of course)

[cantfindagoodscreenname]

Hmmm. Didn't mention if he was home-schooled. (sarcasm, of course)

LOL!!! I was JUST about to say the same thing. Great minds think alike!

[netmilsmom]

Women!! Pick your men right and stay married to the father of your children!
DO NOT bring strange men into their lives.

[Devil_Anse]

How much you wanna bet that this whore, who lives with this wanna-be murderer and exposes her children to him, has raised the money to bail him out of jail pending trial?

[pris]

since none of you were there you cant imagine how little it shows of your christian background. the news isnt even reporting the truth but what else is new. try the real father beat their mother in front of them and almost killed her and got a lousy 3 years out of it and as for beating the boy that isnt what he himself told the rest of the family but children and youth get kids to say what they want them to say and everyone else just judges people they dont know. lets hope none of you ever end up in that situstion where you are accused and in reality innocent and everyone condemns you. and for the record no she didnt raise money to bail him out his brother and his boss did. so take that to the bank and no this isnt his mother just someone who has known the family for over 30 years.

[Devil_Anse]

You know nothing about me. You make assumptions, however. For example, you assume I am Christian, but I don't recall saying that in my post. What other things do you assume without having proof?

You know all about it? Okay, did the man push the boy down the stairs or not?

So the woman's previous liason, the father of at least some of her children, beat her? And now she is hooked up with another man who is accused of pushing a boy down the stairs?
Is she married to this second man? Or does she just live with him? Neither? Both?

From what little I know of this woman--all of which is from reading the article and from your disjointed, semi-coherent, poorly written post--I will say that I do not admire her.

You joined up today for what? Just to send me an incoherent post and an incoherent freepmail? Get lost. I have no desire to hear from you again.

[Yeti]

raised the money to bail him out of jail pending trial?

Hard to understand the article. First it says that the boy told the police when he came out of the coma, then it says that his mom called the police when she got home.

If she called the law, that might mean she sprouted a scruple, and the creep is history. It's a shame it took so much to coax that out of her, though -- the cigarette burnings didn't happen in the same incident, so this fall was(not surprisingly, with toilet problems at 9 yrs old) part of some ongoing abuse.

What is up with this sick-ass "entertainment" torture thing that goes around lately? Cigarette burns, crack-pipe burns. That kind of sick sh!t used to be something you only heard about in horror stories. Then I started hearing about it being done to women(remember Rick James and his girlfriend?) and now, more and more often, to children.

A rise in the gratuitous torture of children is a sign of something worse than "moral decay," it's Evil on a spree.

[Devil_Anse]

since none of you were there

And YOU were there?

The article says the boy said the man pushed him down stairs b/c he wet his pants. The article says the boy says the man burned the boy's feet with lit cigarettes. You're saying none of those things happened? How do you know? Have you been with this boy and this man 24/7?

Why is a 9-yr-old boy wetting his pants? My guess is that his mother is too busy whoring to take proper care of him and to see that a 9-yr-old who urinates in his pants has a problem which deserves medical attention. Just a guess, based on experience with other women who "live with" guys for 5 years, exposing their children to such "guys", but who don't bother to marry their sex partners. Yes, it's done all the time, but that doesn't make it right.

You say you've known "the family" for 30 years. I doubt that, b/c I don't think there is a "family" to know. To call this mixed group of miscreants, boyfriends, and innocent helpless children a "family" is stretching the definition a bit too much, in my opinion.

Go back where you came from.

[Devil_Anse]

Hi Yeti!

You think the article is hard to understand? Try understanding Post 6.

The poster of that post, and that btw is that poster's ONLY post on this forum, knows all about the whole situation, you see. Knows things that we can't know. Has inside information. So, you see, we are all wrong. The article is 100% wrong. It's all a figment of someone's imagination. And we therefore have no right to express an opinion about what the article states.

But I prefer to take the article at face value. I guess some people don't know that posts made in response to articles imply, "IF this article is for real, THEN my opinion is," etc. Duh.

IF this article is for real, then my opinion is that this woman is too busy whoring to take care of her children properly. IF this article is for real, then my opinion is that this woman is exposing her children to someone who, while he may be exciting to have in bed, is not good for her children. IOW, she is putting her own greedy, pathetic need for pleasure ahead of her own children.

Also, if what the Incoherent One said in Post 6 is true, this guy isn't the first loser this woman has picked. But some women are sick like that--they seem to like the bad guys. Self-destructiveness. Wouldn't be more than her simply qualifying for a Darwin Award, except for the fact that she is taking her kids down with her own sorry self.

[Yeti]

Who knows where they come from?

[Yeti]

IF this article is for real, then my opinion is that this woman is exposing her children to someone who, while he may be exciting to have in bed, is not good for her children.

I am not female, but I can't imagine it's that petty. When I hear about something like this, I always think it's money or insecurity at first(most folks don't understand how scary it is to be poor, especially if you have kids), then habit or status quo after a while.

But like I said, I'm not a female, and I know the sexual urge can be more compelling for women than men, despite stereotypes to the contrary, so you could be right.

[Hillary's Lovely Legs]

#6

Why does this keep happening to us?

[Devil_Anse]

Here's an example:

Girl grows up, gets to be about 17. Has first child. A year or so later, has second child--by different guy--and marries this second guy.

Now, b/c this girl was busy with other things around the time she should have been graduating from high school, she didn't finish high school. Missed the last two years, IIRC.

The second guy, her husband, turns out to be a very heavy drinker. Things turn sour; they were never that good to begin with, but did that cause her to use birth control till she was sure of the guy (or insist that HE use it)? Oh, no.

One day she gets mad and slaps the second child, a little girl, who is about 2 at the time. DHR gets involved and takes the girl away. Meanwhile, they interview the older child, a boy, and they think they have uncovered a molestation case, b/c the little boys says things about someone doing sexual things to him. The boy is also taken into state custody.

Now this woman is very attractive, but she has no education to speak of, so the only jobs she can get usually pay minimum wage. Newsflash: you can't keep a household of three people on minimum wage. So she slides into a relationship with a new man. She needs that extra income.

She goes through all sorts of counseling, is criminally prosecuted for slapping her daughter, goes on probation for a couple years, gets her GED, maintains steady employment, and finally gets custody of her kids back.

Unfortunately, soon after she gets them back, she finds she can't make ends meet, so she moves in with her boyfriend. Some of the things he did: he ran around the house, saying he'd stuck his finger near his behind, and teasing the kids, chasing them, saying "I'm gonna make you smell it", and he did some other little "jokes" on the kids which didn't hurt them physically, but which weren't very funny.

The woman leaves him (gee... why... he was such a prize...) and takes the kids to the father of her second child, and leaves them, telling him, "take care of them, I've just got to get some money together, and a place to live, and I'll be back."

The kids end up back in state custody.

The whole problem is that the woman is not financially independent, so she has to hook up with some guy, even a scumbag will do, just to get the extra money she needs to keep a roof. The reason she isn't financially independent is that she was too busy having babies back when she should have gotten her high school diploma and then gone on to college or to some sort of training program.

It's pathetic. Really pathetic.

[Yeti]

It's pathetic.

You don't have to tell *me* about women who f*ck up their kids, DA. There are reasons why my daughter has been with me since she was small, and convenience isn't one of them.

[FreePaul]

...and stay married to the father of your children!

Married??? Some don't bother in the first place. How many "fathers" are there in some "families?" Don't know about this one since the article is vague about a lot of things.

[Devil_Anse]

I hear you! I have a friend who had custody of his daughter since she was two, which was when her mother walked out. The daughter is now 20.

He let the mother have visitation b/c he thought it was the right thing to do--thinking his daughter "ought" to know her mother. He never asked the woman for a dime of child support.

In retrospect, it turned out to be a mistake to let the girl ever visit with that woman. So if your daughter's mother doesn't visit often, be glad.

[FITZ]

I always think it's money or insecurity at first

I don't think it's the money because a lot of welfare mothers have men shacked up with them and they don't care what the men do to the kids. Maybe insecurity which looks like a sex drive ---- they'll sleep with anyone because they need to prove someone will sleep with them. At any rate the need for a man is more powerful to them than the safety of their children.

[FITZ]

What is the mother doing shacked up with a guy when she has kids? It's one thing if she found someone who loved her and she started a new family, a new marriage --- a stable relationship ---- if she's got to get laid, then she could take it to a motel and keep her kids safe from whatever types of men she picks up.

A nine year old relies on his mother to protect him, to keep him safe --- and she's bringing home men who will torture and try to kill him.

[netmilsmom]

That is so true.