12:00 AM CDT on Wednesday, July 12, 2006

Associated Press

HOUSTON – The parents of a severely beaten teenager said nearly three months after the attack that their son would never fully recover from the assault that he has yet to comprehend.

The 17-year-old Spring teen asks, "Why? Who are these people? And why [me]?" said his mother, speaking publicly for the first time Monday.

She and her husband, who asked to be identified only as the Galvans, said they believed the crime was motivated by their son's Hispanic heritage.

The boy was beaten at an April 22 party. He was punched, kicked, burned with cigarettes, doused with bleach and sodomized with a plastic pipe before being left for hours in the back yard of a classmate's home.

Justin Tuck, 18, and Keith Turner, 17, have pleaded not guilty to charges of aggravated assault. The Galvans' attorney is investigating possible ties with hate groups because the teenagers allegedly uttered racial slurs while attacking the Galvans' son. The teens also allegedly cut his chest with a knife, and the victim's mother said she believed they were trying to carve a swastika.

The Galvans said their son regained consciousness after several weeks at Memorial Hermann Hospital and is undergoing surgeries to repair damage to internal organs and other injuries. He cannot speak because of the tracheotomy tube in his throat.

"We read his lips, hand gestures. He writes on a tablet," his father said.

The Galvans said their son had no memory of the attack.

"He's never going to be the same, not physically or mentally," his father said.