'I'm the only one who ever loved him': Father who kept son, 13, in dog cage and let him starve then buried him in shallow grave says he's the 'fall guy' in jailhouse interview
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A father convicted of keeping his 13-year-old son in a dog cage, torturing him, letting him starve, then burying his body behind the family mobile home claims he's the only person who ever loved his abused child.
Riley Choate spoke out this week from the Indiana prison where he is serving 80 years for the boy's 2009 death and claimed he was 'the fall guy' for a case for which he claims many people are responsible.
Authorities say the final year of Christian Choate's life was subhuman. He was subjected to regular beatings, taken out of school, starved and kept locked in a dog cage.
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Not taking responsibility: Riley Choat says other people deserve blame in his son Christian's death in 2009, as well
Tragic: Christian Choat was tortured and starved. He was wearing diapers when he died
Choat talked to WBBM-TV from his maximum-security Indiana prison.
When Christian died from a combination of starvation and injuries from his father's most recent beating April 2, 2009, his step-mother put him in a plastic tub. When Riley got home from work, they decided how to dispose of the body.
'Nobody’s gonna miss him anyhow. We’ll just bury him,' Choat said.
'I put him in the hole. I put him in there. I covered him up.'
Christian was one of 10 children living in a single-wide mobile home in Gary, Indiana, at the time with Choat and his step-mother Kimberly Kubina.
When he died, he was wearing diapers meant for the youngest child in the house and clothes meant for a child half the normal weight for a 13-year-old boy.
Still, Choat refused to accept responsibility for his son's death, saying only: 'Did I fail him? Yes, I failed him.'
He added: 'I think I’m the only one who loved him.'
Choat said he knows people think he's a monster, but he knows he's not.
'I have nightmares. I can see him in my sleep,' he said of his son.
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Share'I see his face. I see him in that cage and I’m like man, man. It’s like he reaching up towards me saying you know help me.”'
But Lake County Sheriff John Buncich told WMMB that he think Choat deserved nothing less than the death penalty for the slow, torturous death Christian endured.
'He's an animal.'
'Parents': Christopher's stepmother Kimberly Kubina (left) plead guilty to neglect and has agreed to testify against Christopher's father Riley Choate (right)
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