Blame
Death, Disability, and the Search for Justice for Guy Mitchell
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- Pre-Order
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- Expected Jul 7, 2026
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
Dramatic nonfiction that reads like a legal thriller, the story of the life and death of a man with developmental disabilities, unfolding in flashbacks to reveal a complex web of culpability
On April 29, 2012, a private world of deceit and neglect came crashing down when Guy Mitchell, a 38-year-old man with developmental disabilities, died confused and alone, thrashing in a dark underground tank on the rural property where he lived.
When police arrived, they found a far larger crime scene: a house of horror where Guy had been living with two other vulnerable individuals under the care of a young woman with serious psychological issues. The home had no running water and no heat. Human waste filled the toilets and covered bathtubs, walls, and floors. There was no food in the kitchen, and mounds of dirty laundry and garbage cluttered most rooms. Yet the agency overseeing the home gave it a pass just two days before Guy’s death.
Blame: Death, Disability, and the Search for Justice for Guy Mitchell attempts to find meaning and justice in the tragic death of a vulnerable individual whose circle of care failed him. Moving between the coroner’s inquest and flashing back to real-time events, author Dustin Galer explores what happened to Guy Mitchell in meticulous detail. As each layer of Guy’s support system is peeled back and examined, new facts emerge that reveal yet another missed opportunity to intervene in a rapidly deteriorating situation. Dramatic nonfiction that reads like a legal thriller, Blame resists easy answers, exposing a tangled web of negligence, indifference, and systemic failure and probing the deeper structural forces behind Guy’s death. What emerges is a powerful indictment of a broken system and a strong argument that the duty to care for society’s most vulnerable ultimately lies with us all.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The latest from Canadian historian Galer (Beryl) is a harrowing account of the death of a developmentally disabled Ontario man. As a child, Guy Mitchell was placed in Canada's home-sharing system and taken in by an experienced couple who raised him alongside other disabled residents on their rural farm. Guy's parents remained in his life, but much of his upbringing took place under this arrangement, sustained by meager government funding that strained the household's resources. After the couple passed away, their 26-year-old daughter, Keri Santor, assumed responsibility for Guy and two others. Warning signs that Keri was ill-equipped mounted, including concerns from Guy's mother and reports from neighbors about neglected, starving animals on the farm. When Guy drowned in a cistern on the property, investigators uncovered shocking conditions, including rampant filth, a lack of running water, and little edible food. Galer structures the narrative around the ensuing inquest, interweaving testimony with flashbacks that build toward the devastating conclusion. The central question of whether Guy's death was accidental or the result of negligence proves tricky to answer, but Galey's indictment of disability care is unmistakable. This is a sobering portrait of a system failing the people it was meant to protect. Photos.
