Chilling moment man admits torturing autistic little brother, 15, with hot sauce before his death
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A man has admitted torturing his teenage brother by feeding him hot sauce, as he slowly starved to death. Timothy Ferguson, who had autism with speech and motor impairment, was subjected to horrific torture, including being forced to eat bread doused in California reaper hot sauce and to lie in ice-cold baths for hours at a time. The 15-year-old died in 2022 from malnourishment and hypothermia, weighing only around five stone.
His brother, Paul Ferguson, 21, admitted his role in the death and claimed he carried out the orders of their mother, Shanda Vander Ark, 44. In newly-released footage, which was filmed during Paul Ferguson’s police interview, he admitted he had given the fiery food as a form of punishment for at least 'a month', MirrorUS revealed.
He callously told the officer: “The thing is, it still hardly did anything for him. There would be times when it would do something for me because I accidentally rubbed it on my eye after I put it on there. “Whenever my mother told me to put hot sauce on it I did. It was normally a thin layer to make sure that it wouldn’t be too much. Because from what I know, the ghost or the California Reaper is what, 2,000 Scovilles - or 2m Scovilles?”.
When asked by the police officer why Timothy ‘couldn’t have meals’, Ferguson said it was because he had been ‘sneaking food’. He also claimed it was his ‘mother’s idea’ for his brother just to eat bread dipped in the hot sauce - which was used to discipline him.
Ferguson was earlier given 30 to 100 years in prison for helping his mother, Shanda Vander Ark, torture and starve Timothy to death. While she was handed down a life sentence without parole. Breaking down, after being allowed to address the court at his hearing, Ferguson had said: "I ask the judge for nothing more than mercy and fairness. To offer me compassion, so I might learn from him.".
