New Chud Dad Alert (Easy Way Out, Too): Matthew Ponomarenko

Cleveland area.

Let me just give you the video upfront on this one:

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Basic story on this one: a guy killed his five year-old son. It seems like he was very mentally deranged, and most of the family noticed it but did absolutely nothing about it, and throughout the course of the “investigation” — I put that in quotes because when this guy did it, he called the cops and confessed and was arrested in his front yard, so there’s not too much to investigate, ya know? — you hear family members bemoan “Oh, I should have done this” or “I should have said this” or whatever.

There is also some belief that Matthew here believed his son was autistic and “had issues,” and had told one friend that he thought he should kill his son because “he might suffer” later in life. It’s always remarkable to me that people like this become biological fathers, and I’ve been chasing that ghost for over a half-decade and can’t get there. I am not sure I would be a good father (probably wouldn’t be ideal, no), but I think I could get one over on this guy.

The child’s brain was “pulpified” per the autopsy report, as a horrific little aside here.

One interesting semantic thing that comes up in this case is, and I’m not sure why a cop did this, but a cop asks some of the family members: Do you think this was done by Matthew, or by his mental illness? I don’t know if you can reasonably split that atom, as people possess mental illnesses and inherently they’re one and the same, but a lot of the family members do say “Oh, it’s Matt.” (I think that’s the right answer.)

As for “easy way out,” our dad of the year here committed suicide in prison last December. A few years before that suicide, there’s a recorded jail call with his mom, where his mom tells him, essentially: “You know what you need to do, but make peace with God first.” Apparently Matthew did indeed know what he needed to do, but it took a few years.

It should probably also be noted here that he had a tattoo of his son’s name, Jax, above his eye before he brutally beat him with a baseball bat.

I’ve written about many chud fathers and husbands (here’s one of those) and this dude is definitely up there.