Doting Mother Kills Her Toddler Feeding Him Salt

Woman feeds her son excessive salt which kills him eventually. Sources say she was a doting mum. Why did she do it then? Is she suffering from a rare psychiatric condition or is she just plain criminal minded?

According to Daily Mail;

Police in New York have launched an investigation to determine whether an apparently devoted mother fatally poisoned her own 5-year-old son with toxic levels of salt.

Garnett Spears died at Westchester Medical Center in January after his 26-year-old mom, Lacey Spears, rushed him to the emergency room on suffering intense abdominal pains from what appeared to be a stomach virus.The little boy’s condition worsened and he died four days later with what appeared to be dangerously high amounts of sodium in his system – leading investigators to question whether Garnett was deliberately given the salt.

Indeed, before he tragically passed away, hospital officials told police that the levels were suspiciously high – which caused the investigation to be opened into the Chestnut Ridge mother. Following this, police sought and obtained a search warrant for her home in mid-January. They took food from her home, her cell phone and computer. They have also questioned Lacey Spears’ friends and family and obtained Garnett’s past medical records after discovering that he had been hospitalized 23-times during his short life. As the investigation continued, a neighbor who asked not to be named told USA Today that as Spears’ son lay dying she asked her to go to her home and dispose of one of the boy’s feeding bags – which allegedly contained a large amount of sodium.

Police have not released why Garnett had a feeding tube – believed to be in his abdomen – but have pointed to his history of illness and repeated hospital visits.The neighbor who asked not to be named said that they did initially remove the bag – but then phoned the police and turned it over when they heard about the circumstances surrounding the boy’s death.

According to the USA Today, the bag had been used, but lab testing revealed the high sodium content, sources said. It is a potentially crucial development as investigators seek to determine whether the young mother gave fatal amounts of salt to her son in a case of Munchausen by proxy, a psychiatric disorder that makes a parent harm their child as a form of attention seeking.

Spears, who has left New York to stay with her family in Kentucky has yet to be charged and has emphatically denied ever harming her son. She has also hired an attorney who has said Spears is ‘absolutely devastated by the loss of her son. ‘‘Lacey did nothing to harm him. She loved him and did everything she could to care for him and protect him,’ her sister Rebecca Spears said to USA Today. She added that Garnett ‘was a kid that didn’t let you walk past him without saying hello … You could be having the worst day in the world, and he was still going to talk to you. By the time he was done, you’d be smiling.’

 

Stomach flu can lead to a dehydrated state that results in elevated sodium levels, but police are investigating this case in particular because of the number of hospital visits Spears made. According to USA Today, while Spears wrote on Facebook that her son couldn’t ‘hold his head up and roll over without screaming, without pain,’ before his admission. Spears’s Twitter account also states that her son was in hospital for the 23rd time back in 2009, and a hospital official said that the little boy suffered chronic ear infections and dietary problems.

On January 20, Spears – an avid user of social media – wrote five Facebook posts about her son’s condition, including one that mentioned his suspect sodium level.Two days later, the USA Today reports that she shared the tragic news her ‘sweet baby boy Garnett has been declared brain dead. It can’t even be possible. That’s my baby boy. I’m not ready to let him go.’And in a subsequent post she declared, ‘Sometime tomorrow I will make the decision to remove his life support.’

And on Jan. 23 she wrote, ‘Garnett the great journeyed onward today at 10:20 a.m.’