The Porter County Sheriff’s Police is appealing to the public to assist detectives with their investigation of the homicide of 6-month-old Nicholas Munden, who died last week at the University of Chicago Hospital (UCH).

In a statement issued after deadline on Friday, the PCSP asked anyone with pertinent information to contact Det. Wiseman at (219) 477-3136.

In the same statement the PCSP released the name of the day-care provider in whose residence Nicholas was found unconscious on Sept. 19: Deborah Parlok, who operates a service out of her home on Big Tree Court in Liberty Township.

On the morning of Sept. 19 Parlok discovered Nicholas lying unresponsive on his belly and called 911, EMS personnel and PCSP officers responded, and Nicholas was transported to Porter Valparaiso Hospital Campus, police said. On the same day he was airlifted to UCH “for treatment of an unknown condition,” police said—subsequently identified as a subdural hematoma, or bleeding of the brain—but died on Sept. 29.

On Oct. 1 the Cook County, Ill., Medical Examiner, following an autopsy, ruled the death a homicide. Cause of death: “blunt head trauma” associated with “child abuse.”

Parlok is currently an unlicensed day-care provider but at one time did have a license granted by the Indiana Family and Social Services Administration (FSSA), FSSA spokesperson Elizabeth Surgener told the Chesterton Tribune today. In January 2003, Surgener said, Parlok lost that license for “substantiated abuse.” Surgener declined to elaborate but noted that Parlok later successfully appealed the decision and in December 2003 her license was reinstated. “The state lost the appeal,” Surgener said.

In January 2004, however, Parlok “willingly gave up that license,” for reasons unknown to Surgener. State law, however, permits a person to operate a day-care service without a license if it serves five or fewer unrelated children, Surgener said, and under that provision Parlok did so.

But on the night of Sept. 22—three days after Nicholas was found unconscious at the Big Tree Lane residence—FSSA was notified by a voice-mail message that Parlok was caring for more than the number of children permitted by state law. On Sept. 23 FSSA investigated and indeed found eight unrelated children at the residence, Surgener said. Parlok was issued a warning and in a follow-up check on Friday—two days after Nicholas’ autopsy—FSSA found only three children in Parlok’s care, Surgener said.

“We will continue to monitor the situation and work closely with the Division of Child Services,” Surgener said. “They will be monitoring the situation and assisting local authorities in their investigation.”

Prior Incident?

Meanwhile, attorney Bob Harper, representing Nicholas’ parents, Brett and Jessica Munden, told the Tribune today that Nicholas was “fine” when brought to Parlok’s day-care service before 7 a.m. on Sept. 19.

Harper also said that a stomach ailment for which Nicholas was treated at UCH a couple of months ago may actually have been a symptom of a prior incident of abuse. Nicholas had been brought to Porter hospital for treatment of projectile vomiting but, when his parents “were not satisfied with the answers” provided at that facility, took him instead to UCH, Harper said. There Nicholas was diagnosed with “acid reflux,” a common enough condition in infants, and when the symptoms disappeared and Nicholas’ condition appeared to resolve itself his parents brought him home, “not thinking anything,” Harper said.

Now a UCH physician has indicated to Nicholas’ parents that the vomiting may have been misdiagnosed and related instead to “some sort of trauma,” Harper said.

Brett Munden is assistant principal at Portage High School and Jessica Munden is a teacher at PHS.

Posted 10/6/2008