43
Neighbor: People rushing to wrong judgments after boy drowns
By Ed Runyan
SHARON, PA.
Lydia Carte, who lives on Erie Street just up the hill from the family who lost their 2-year-old son to an apparent drowning Sunday, says people seem to be rushing to wrong judgments about the child’s family.
She thinks the news that investigators wore hazardous-materials suits while serving a search warrant at the Gammon home Monday morning has caused people to think there might be dangerous drugs or animal-waste inside.
But Carte said she has never seen indications drug activity has taken place at the home, nor has she ever gotten the impression they had a dog or lots of animals.
Their son, Anakin Gammon, died Sunday night at Sharon Regional Health Center after he was found unresponsive in a swimming pool in the backyard of a home on Syme Street in Masury, a couple of blocks from home.
Police say Anakin left his home on Lafayette Avenue in the West Hill neighborhood with his 5-year-old autistic brother Sunday afternoon. A 4:41 p.m. Mercer County 911 call reported them missing. The older boy was found safe at 5:17 p.m., several blocks away.
When interviewed Monday afternoon, the boys’ mother, Nickie Gammon, said she felt she was being blamed for what happened, but she didn’t talk about what led up to the boys’ disappearance.
No one answered their door Tuesday when The Vindicator tried again to talk to the family. Sharon Police Chief Gerry Smith, whose department is handling the Sharon part of the investigation, did not return a phone call. There was no word Tuesday on the result of Anakin’s autopsy or any results of a search conducted at Gammon’s home.
The Mercer and Erie county coroner’s offices both said they could not provide the results of the autopsy carried out in Erie County.
Carte said suggestions on social media the Gammon family might not be attentive enough to their children seems wrong to her, having witnessed the children playing in the backyard and the parents being present.
“You would hear kids out there [in the yard] playing and you’d hear adults out there,” she said. “The kids are always well taken care of.”
She doesn’t know the parents personally. She only knew of the father because her boyfriend sometimes talked to him. She saw the father sometimes at the store where he works, and she went to school with the father’s sister.
She said she didn’t know the family had boys age 2 and 5 until news reports about them walking away from home.
As for their boys getting away from them, Carte said it happened with her son when he was 2. She learned from the experience. “It can happen to anyone’s family,” she said.
“To me, they are just an ordinary, average family.”
She said she was devastated to learn the boy had died, “but I was even more devastated for the parents because they had just lost their child, and they are going to have to live the rest of their life without him being there. My heart broke.”