Dad accused of killing 6-year-old son but system also failed boy

UPDATE: In a piece I wrote on March 18 on the tragedy of an Ocean County boy’s homicide, I included my thought that I didn’t know why the boy's mother would allow the father, now accused of the murder, to re-enter the child’s life at 4 years old after she claimed his conception was the result of rape. At the time published reports on this aspect were unclear. Since that time, I have heard privately from a number of people who knew the family and I’m told what was not covered in articles I read, that it was never the mother’s choice but rather the family court’s decision to allow the father access to the child. Which, if true, makes the system I wrote about all the more culpable for having failed this boy, and I would apologize to the mother for not having known those circumstances.

My original story is below.

If you haven’t yet read Erin Vogt’s article on what police say happened to a little boy in Ocean County, buckle up because it’s quite a sad ride. I felt nauseous reading it as more and more details emerged.

Corey Micciolo was only 6 when authorities say he was murdered by his own father, Christopher Gregor. But it didn’t have to happen.

Breanna Micciolo, the boy’s mother, says he was conceived as a result of being raped by Gregor. There was no relationship between child and father for Corey’s first four years. Then that changed.

Christopher Gregor (Ocean County Jail)

But it seems everyone failed him. From all accounts, the last two years of Corey’s life were a living hell ever since the father became present. There were 14 separate reports filed with the Division of Child Protection and Permanency.

One of those came after an incident almost a year ago in which authorities say Gregor, known to bully Corey over being “fat” according to witnesses, put him on a treadmill set at an impossibly fast speed for which the boy couldn’t possibly keep up.

He collapsed six times, according to police who viewed a surveillance video of the incident, and law enforcement said it appears Gregor bites his son during this as well. It brought child endangerment charges.

(Corey via Bre Micciolo/GoFundMe coordinator Ashley Reynolds)

In the days that followed, there were photographs taken by his mother of bruises and blood pooling within Corey’s eye. About two weeks later the boy died.

His death was ruled a homicide. From Erin Vogt’s article:

“The expert said "blunt impact injuries of the chest and abdomen with laceration of the heart, left pulmonary contusion and contusion of the liver" were consistent with ongoing abuse over a period of time — which he did find evidence of, rather than one incident.”

Indeed something seems to have happened after the treadmill incident as the same expert found an acute traumatic injury occurred to the boy’s heart six to 12 hours before he died.

What happened after Corey’s death was just as despicable as the two years of alleged abuse he suffered. Police say Gregor headed out of state and that they eventually discovered in his internet search history lookups such as “will red marks turn into bruises?” and “could internal bleeding raise your blood sugar levels?” (shortly before dying doctors found Corey’s blood sugar levels were too high) and “murder determined from autopsy, how long to file charges?” and so on.

Someone needs to answer for this

Gregor will have his day in court but even with a conviction, even if we had brought back a death penalty, he will never get the punishment one deserves for such crimes against a child. I’ll leave it to your imagination what I would do to such a convict.

But there’s more here than that. The utter failure of a system whose very mission is to separate such animals from victim children.

How were there 14 separate reports on problems with this little boy and no one stopped Gregor from seeing him? How is that possible? How is that due diligence? How is Corey’s blood not also on the hands of the Division of Child Protection and Permanency?

Someone needs to answer for this. Someone needs to speak for this 6-year-old child. Because he lost his voice, and everything else he was ever going to have, on April 2, 2021.

Opinions expressed in the post above are those of New Jersey 101.5 talk show host Jeff Deminski only.

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