A family is making international headlines this week after a neighbor, in a letter, told the mother of an autistic teenage boy that she should “do the right thing” and euthanize him to supposedly put him out of his misery.

From a local news report:

Karla Begley told CityNews her son Max, 13, stays with his grandmother in the morning during the summer time. It was at that home in Newcastle where letter was delivered on Friday. “I was shaking when I was reading it,” Brenda Millson, Max’s grandmother, told CityNews. “It’s awful words. You don’t know why somebody would ever do such a thing.” The typed, one-page letter (right) refers to the young boy as a “nuisance” and a “wild animal” before suggesting the family move or “euthanize” the child. Begley says the police have been contacted and should they have grounds, charges will be filed against the letter’s author.

The letter calls the teenager a “hindrance to everyone” and says: “I also live in this neighborhood and have a problem. You selfishly put your kid outside everyday and let him be a nothing but a nuisance and a problem to everyone else with that noise polluting whaling he constantly makes!!!”

“That noise he makes when he is outside is DREADFUL!!!!!!!!!! It scares the hell out of my normal children!!!!!!!” the letter continues. “When you feel your idiot kid needs fresh air, take him to our park you dope.”

Meanwhile, Ontario police are now investigating the matter: