The Commonwealth will pay $10 million to settle claims brought by the estate of a 14-year-old autistic boy who starved to death inside a Fall River home six years ago.

 

David Almond was under the care of the Department of Children and Families when he was found unresponsive in a Green Street apartment back in October 2020.

David’s brothers, who are also autistic, are each receiving an independently managed lifelong special needs trust through the settlement, and $750,000 will be given to the SouthCoast Community Foundation to establish two funds in David’s memory.

 

Specifically, $150,000 will go toward a memorial scholarship for college, vocational or technical training, with neurodivergent children in foster care receiving first priority. The remaining $600,000 will be placed into a memorial fund, which will gift grants to Massachusetts nonprofits and schools that serve neurodivergent residents.

 

“No settlement can undo what happened to David and his brothers, but this resolution holds the Commonwealth and DCF accountable for the systemic failures that put these very vulnerable boys in harm’s way,” said Paula Bliss, an attorney with the Justice Law Collaborative.

 

This comes three years after David’s father, John Almond, and his girlfriend, Jaclyn Coleman, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder. Both were sentenced to life in prison back in March 2023.

 

Court documents state that David’s lifeless body was found “in the middle of a deplorable, drug-infested one-bedroom apartment” that he shared with his two brothers, his father, Coleman and an infant.

 

Prosecutors later compared the squalor in the couple’s apartment to the likes of Auschwitz.

 

See more at wpri.com.