CONVICTED: Mother that Blogged about Son’s Health Problems Faces Jail for Murder

05 Mar, 2015 by McGuire

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If you have a tender heart, you may not want to read much further. A mother, who by nature is supposed to love, nurture and protect her babies, has been convicted of murder for killing her 5-year-old child. She injected salt into his feeding tube, causing him intense pain in his last few moments. You’ll never believe the reason why:

A New York mommy who blogged about her son’s fake health woes for years has been found guilty of painfully killing the five-year-old by injecting high concentration of salt into his feeding tube last year, officials said.

According to police, Lacy Spears, 27, is suffering from a rare psychiatric factitious disorder called “Munchausen by Proxy” syndrome. The disorder involves seeking attention through feigning sickness of a child to draw attention, sympathy or reassurance to themselves.

In Spears’ case, she feigned her son Garnett-Paul Spears’s sickness and went even a step ahead by poisoning the child for getting the attention, according to prosecution.

A White Plains jury handed down the second-degree murder verdict death Monday after three days of deliberations. She faces 25 years to life in prison.

Prosecutors said she killed the boy because she was afraid he would say she was poisoning him to stay ill.

But on social media, Spears played the role of a loving mother and often tweeted about how much she loved her son.

Spears blogged about her “very sick” little boy and how he had been in and out of the hospital 23 times before he was one. She blogged from her home in Chestnut Ridge, New York, and wrote of high fevers, ear infections, digestive problems and seizures that her child suffered. But he was never really sick at all.

Video showed Spears twice taking the boy into a hospital bathroom with a connector tube and the boy suffering afterward.

Assistant District Attorney Patricia Murphy called Spears’ actions “nothing short of torture.”

“The motive is bizarre, the notion is scary, but it exists … She apparently craved the attention of her family, her friends, her co-workers and most particularly the medical profession,” Murphy said.

Spears, according to prosecutors, induced brain swelling by feeding Garnett heavy concentrations of sodium through a stomach tube

Defense lawyer Stephen Riebling said there was no “direct evidence” of a crime. He said that Spears was devastated by her son’s death.

The hospital video was edited to eliminate tender scenes between mother and son, including one where Spears puts two pairs of socks on Garnett, the defense lawyer said.

“If she’s planning on killing him, why does she care whether his feet are cold?” he asked the jury.

These kinds of stories absolutely break my heart – twice. Once as a mommy, and once as a medically backgrounded professional. As a mommy, and especially a mommy of two kids with REAL issues (diabetes and autism) it absolutely sickens me that this mama thought that it was OK to do this to her little. How can you hurt a life you created? That you Nurtured for 9 months inside? As a nurse, this makes me even more scared when a parent brings a kiddo into the ER, and during triage, you have to evaluate the parent as well as the patient. Is that fair? Probably not, but I won’t chance a kid being hurt because I didn’t watch for the signs. This mom should have had medical professionals wise to her game long before the baby lost his life. This mom needs to get psychological help, and be seriously evaluated on her reproduction rights. Rest in Peace, little Garnett.

Written by Katie McGuire. Follow Katie on Twitter @GOPKatie