NORTON SHORES, Mich. — A mother accused of torturing and killing her 15-year-old son took the stand in court Thursday.
Shanda Vander Ark is facing a felony charge of murder and child abuse in the first-degree for alleged crimes that stem back to July of 2022.
The specifics of the torture Timothy Ferguson allegedly had to endure from both his mother Shanda and older brother, 20-year-old Paul Ferguson, were spoken in the courtroom for the first time on Wednesday.
Today was the second day of Vander Ark's trial. During the first court date, Vander Ark's son Paul Ferguson testified, saying that the punishments inflicted upon Timothy were at the direction of his mother. You can read about Paul's testimony here.
Paul is also being charged with first-degree child abuse.
Vander Ark took the witness stand Thursday morning and was examined by her defense attorney as well as the prosecuting attorney.
The defense attorney began questioning by asking about when Timothy first came into her care in the spring of 2021. Vander Ark said that her ex-husband asked Vander Ark to take custody of Timothy because he was becoming to hard to handle.
The prosecution began their cross-examination later in the day, using pages of text messages Vander Ark sent and received to try to prove that the punishments were deliberate and justified the charge against her.
Vander Ark repeatedly claimed that she had no recollection of many of the texts that were sent between her and Paul, asking about Timothy and directing Paul to do things to his brother.
She claimed that she has very little memory of several months when Timothy was being force-fed hot sauce, punished with ice baths and forced to stand against the wall for periods of time.
Prosecutors drew attention to Vander Ark's past as an accomplished law student in an attempt to discredit her claims of ignorance toward any potential mistreatment or neglect of her son.
At one time during the testimony, the prosecuting attorney showed Vander Ark photos of Timothy hours before he died and Vander Ark began to vomit while on the stand. The court took a short recess before the cross examination continued.
Vander Ark called Timothy "sneaky and deceitful" in reference to her son taking food from the pantries and fridge.
The prosecuting attorney read pages and pages of text messages between Vander Ark and her son Paul during the examination.
The text messages included very disturbing conversations where Vander Ark was instructing Paul to force Timothy to vomit after he ate some crust from a leftover hamburger.
She also instructed Paul via text message to force his brother to do chores without wearing anything below the waist after Paul informed Vander Ark that Timothy had an accident in his pants.
The home had several cameras and one of them caught the moment that Vander Ark and Paul discovered that Timothy was deceased.
The prosecution asked why Vander Ark did not call 911 for 18 minutes after discovering that Timothy was deceased, to which she replied that she didn't know.
Vander Ark will head back to the stand Friday morning for questioning by the jury.
13 ON YOUR SIDE will stream the courtroom proceedings on our website and on our YouTube page.
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