Parents of Blue Earth football beating victim describe toll on family

MINNEAPOLIS (MN)
Star-Tribune

June 4, 2018

By John Reinan

Blue Earth, Minn. – Only a year ago, Tonya and Dale Hurley thought they had found a home for life in this southern Minnesota community of 3,400.

But that was before four of their son’s high school football teammates allegedly beat him so brutally at a house party last fall that he lost consciousness.

Now, the Hurley home is for sale. Tonya and Dale Hurley have quit their jobs, and their 16-year-old son left school because of bullying. As the family packs a rental truck this week for a move to Nebraska, the couple’s marriage is in tatters, too.

“I’ve been depressed. Sometimes I sit here and I feel like I’ve just been in a fog,” Tonya Hurley said Monday, weeping as she described the fallout from the Oct. 18 assault that left her son with concussions.

On Monday, the first of the teammates charged in the case admitted his guilt.

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