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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowA documentary following an Indiana teen with an IQ of 40 and others who were abandoned by their parents and ended up behind bars will debut on public television tonight.
“Children of the Dumping Ground” tracks Justin, who at age 14 functioned at the level of a second-grader yet had no idea whey he was serving time in maximum security juvenile detention, according to show producers. A trailer for the documentary may be viewed here.
The documentary is scheduled to debut at 9 p.m. Thursday on WFYI-Channel 20, Indianapolis.
Filmmaker Karen Grau of Calamari Productions followed Justin over six years. Grau previously has produced documentaries on Indiana cases involving Paul Gingerich, who was sentenced to life in prison at age 12 for his role with other boys in the shooting death of a northern Indiana man, and the “Elkhart 4” juveniles who were convicted of murder for a burglary in which a resident shot and killed the intruders.
The Indiana Supreme Court in September vacated murder convictions for three of the Elkhart 4, and in 2012 the Indiana Court of Appeals threw out Gingerich’s murder conviction, a reversal justices let stand.
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