An ‘evil’ Michigan man who helped his mother torture and starve his autistic younger brother was seen cowering in recently released interrogation footage as he finally appeared to realize what he had done.
Paul Ferguson, 22, is now serving a sentence of up to 100 years behind bars for his role in the death of his brother, Timothy Ferguson, on July 6, 2022.
The autistic teen was found in their Michigan home weighing just 30 pounds, and a subsequent investigation revealed that Paul and his mother, Shanda Vander Ark, subjected the 15-year-old to merciless punishment, including force-feeding hot sauce, depriving him of sleep and locking up his food.
Paul repeatedly insisted to a police officer that he and his mother never intended for Timothy to die while holding his head in his hands and burying his face on the desk, according to interrogation footage. obtained by Law and Crime.
‘I can’t even live with myself,” he told the officer.
The officer then asked how he felt about “defending your mother over and over again, (talking) about how good she is?
“Do you feel like that’s still the truth? Because I’m quite disgusted with her,” he asks, to which Paul again insists that his mother “never wanted this,” raising his head again but refusing to make eye contact with the police officer.
Paul Ferguson, 22, was seen cowering in recently released interrogation footage as an officer spoke to him about his role in the murder of his brother, Timothy.
Paul (right) is now serving a sentence of up to 100 years behind bars for his role in the death of his brother Timothy Ferguson (left), on July 6, 2022
The officer then decided to make a point by asking Paul how smart his mother is.
“She’s incredibly intelligent, magna cum laude, right?” Paul replied.
‘Have you ever thought about that? Have you ever thought, “How can a woman who is so smart and intelligent, (a) graduate from law school, how can she not know what is happening?
“How can she think this is fake?” he continued, referring to Paul and his mother’s claims that they believed the boy was merely pretending to be hungry.
“How does she not know she’s starving him?” How can she not see that he is wasting away?’ the officer asked rhetorically.
“And you here, you’re telling me that you have some mental health issues, but you graduated high school — and it’s very clear to you that he has malnutrition, right?
‘It’s very clear to you. But your mother is here and she doesn’t see that? And she has a law degree and she’s very smart? See what I’m looking at here?
Footage shows Paul initially insisting to a police officer that he and his mother never intended for Timothy to die, despite their sentences.
He hung his head as the officer tried to convince him that his mother had manipulated him
He then tried to convince Paul that his mother had just manipulated him.
‘She’s a liar! She lied to you about so many things,” the officer argues.
“At some point you have to stand up for yourself and realize that she is the manipulator, she is the liar, she put you in this place. She did this to your brother, using you. Can’t you see that?’
Paul said nothing at all as the officer made his point, and simply hung his head as he apparently absorbed the officer’s message.
Still, the officer continued.
‘She’s so smart. She’s smarter than all of us here, she’s smarter than me, she’s smarter than any detective here, she’s smarter than our police chief, she’s smarter than all of us,” he said of Vander Ark.
“And we’re supposed to believe she didn’t know what was going on?”
“No, she didn’t want him around anymore because he was too much of a problem,” the officer argued.
Paul’s mother, Shanda Vander Ark, was convicted of her son’s murder and was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole
“You know that’s the truth. You can look back and see that, right?’ he begged the brother. ‘She didn’t want him around anymore because he was too much work.
“That’s the truth, and once you start to believe that and understand that, then I think this is the time you can move forward with this case,” he concluded, prompting Paul to nod slightly as he pressed his knuckle against his shut up. .
Paul pleaded guilty to first-degree child abuse in the case, and eventually testified against his own mother at her trial, claiming he was also a victim of hers and suffered from “something akin to Stockholm syndrome.”
“I long to find a role model who, because of my own low self-esteem, would do anything to make them proud of me,” he said.
“That’s not an excuse, I know, but I’m glad I was able to at least realize it so I could correct it.”
Vander Ark was later convicted of her son’s murder and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, after she was seen vomiting in court when she was shown gruesome images of Timothy’s emaciation as he starved to death .
Timothy had a speech and motor disability and was autistic. Prosecutors claimed he was too much for Vander Ark to handle
Prosecutors also told jurors how Vander Ark forced Timothy – who had speech and motor impairments – to eat only bread covered in hot sauce, and locked the refrigerator to prevent him from eating.
She also covered the house and the small closet where Timothy slept with motion sensors, alarms and live feed cameras, and testified that she bought spicy hot sauce online after Paul thought it would be a good idea to punish the teen.
A text message exchange between the pair revealed that she even wondered if they should drop the hot sauce on the young boy’s genitals.
“I wonder what it would feel like to have that hot sauce on your genitals.” “I’m not saying you should touch it there, not at all, but a little drip there, that’s terrible,” she asked.
Just hours before Timothy died, prosecutors said, Paul placed him in an ice bath for nearly nine hours.
Paul testified against his mother at her trial, claiming he was also a victim of her because he suffered from “something akin to Stockholm syndrome.”
At his sentencing in February, Paul expressed remorse for his actions and pleaded for “mercy and fairness” from the judge.
‘What reasons can justify my actions? I could make up a thousand things and never believe one,” he said in a statement.
‘What words can express my regret? I could think of millions, but I never feel like it’s enough.’
But his words fell on deaf ears when the judge said he did not believe Paul was truly repentant.
“The court finds that Mr. Ferguson is one step away from becoming a psychopath like his mother,” Muskegon County Circuit Judge Matthew Kacel said, according to the court. Grand Rapids Press.
He then defied sentencing guidelines suggest Ferguson will serve nine to 15 years behind bars for his role in his mother’s conviction, and sentenced Paul to 30 to 100 years in prison.
The child molester was seen gagging in shock as he was warned he could be in prison until the year 2124.
He is now challenging the conviction in court, with his lawyers claiming his constitutional rights were violated when the judge requested copies of all text messages between him and his mother from the Muskegon County Prosecutor’s Office. according to the Grand Rapids Press.
The lawyers claim that Kacel read 2,000 pages of texts before passing sentence, which they say should not have been taken into account.
They now want Kacel to withdraw from Paul’s future court appearances and ask that he be resentenced.