Lacey Spears, the Kentucky woman who authorities say force-fed her 5-year-old son salt through a stomach tube and abused the attention that her sick child brought her, has been found guilty of murder in the child’s death.
A jury handed down the verdict after three days of deliberations.
Spears, who was living with her son in Chesnut Ridge at the time of his death, induced brain swelling by feeding Garnett heavy concentrations of sodium through a stomach tube. Jurors saw a video that showed Spears taking her son into a hospital bathroom with a connector tube and the boy suffering afterward.
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A feeding bag found in Spears’ apartment had the equivalent of 69 McDonald’s salt packets in it, a forensic toxicologist testified.
“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,” Assistant District Attorney Patricia Murphy said in closing arguments Thursday.
Defense attorneys had described the Scottsvillle woman as a caring mother who was devastated by her son’s death. He suggested the hospital was to blame — an assertion Murphy called “just ridiculous” — and tried to cast doubt on the medical examiner’s finding that high salt was the cause of death.
