Seeing “The Treadmill” video can leave viewers seething with rage and sinking with heart-breaking pity.
It shows a father forcing his 6-year-old son to run on a treadmill. The son falls off. The father picks him up, puts him back on, then increases the speed of the treadmill as the poor, pitiful boy is forced to run faster and faster, falling off, only to be yanked, lifted and put back on it by the sadistic monster of a father. Six times, the boy falls off, six times his father forces him back on.
That despicable excuse for a “father,” Chris Gregor, 31, was initially charged with first-degree murder, but instead a jury recently found him guilty of “aggravated manslaughter and child endangerment.” There should have been the term “unspeakable vicious cruelty” added to that verdict.
Here’s the horrific background:
In New Jersey, Gregor had custody of his son, Corey. He had come back into Corey’s life when the boy was 5. His mother, Breanna Micciolo, had joint-custody rights. After his first visit to Gregor’s home, he was returned to Micciolo, who said that Corey had a “busted lip.”
During the course of the next year or so, she noticed bruises and/or lacerations on Corey’s body. She said she reported the injuries more than 100 times to authorities, but nothing was done. At one point, she also requested emergency custody of Corey. It was denied.
About two weeks before Corey’s death on April 2, 2021, the treadmill incident was captured on a video camera at a fitness gymnasium. On the day Corey died, his father was angry because Breanna returned the son to his custody 14 hours late. Is it possible he took out his anger on poor defenseless Corey. Later that day, Gregor took Corey, whose body was limp, to the Stafford N.J. hospital. The boy was suffering from nausea and was struggling to breathe. He began having seizures and died an hour later.
After 27 minutes in the hospital, Gregor left his dying son there and began to drive south. Two days later, police stopped Gregor’s car in Tennessee for speeding in a construction zone. He told the police Corey’s mother caused his death, referring to her as a “special kind of dirtbag.”
He wasn’t charged until one year after Corey died, and it wasn’t until two years after his death that a New Jersey child-protection agency (finally!) substantiated two allegations of abuse against the boy.
Try to imagine the fear, panic, terror and pain that Corey had to endure, wondering every time he saw his father what kind of verbal abuse and physical pain would be inflicted upon him. And nobody to help him! Corey had told his mother that “Daddy” called him “too fat” the day of the treadmill torture. In fact, Corey was not obese whatsoever.
In the recent trial, forensic pathologists testified Corey had died of blunt-force trauma, with lacerations to his heart and liver and bruised lungs.
We can only hope “Daddy” gets the full maximum sentence this Aug. 2 (40 years in prison) so no other child will have to endure his torturous cruelties.
This is a blatant case of the entire system failing a helpless child. Law enforcement, clinics, hospitals, schools, child-protection agencies everywhere must develop stronger interconnected strategies to prevent child abuse.
In the meantime, become aware of signs of child abuse in children you see. Then call the Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline at 1-800-4-A-Child or visit www.childhelp.org. If what you see is horrific obvious abuse that imperils a child’s life, call the police immediately.
