Lacey Spears of suburban New York was sentenced to 20 years to life in prison on Wednesday for fatally poisoning her 5-year-old son with salt, apparently so she could gain attention and sympathy for herself on social media.
"By not imposing the maximum, I'm exhibiting something you didn't show your son — namely mercy," said Judge Robert Neary in the Westchester County Courthouse in Valhalla,
Reuters reported.
"Your crime is unfathomable in its cruelty. How could a mother ever treat her child in such a callous, inhumane manner?" he added.
Spears' son, Garnett-Paul Spears, was described by Assistant District Attorney Doreen Lloyd as a normal, healthy child. After Garnett was hospitalized with seizure-like symptoms, however, Spears administered sea salt into his feeding tube on multiple occasions, killing him in January 2014.
"Throughout his five years, Garnett Spears was forced to suffer through repeated hospitalizations, unneeded surgical procedures and ultimately poisoning with salt, all at the hands of the one person who should have been his ultimate protector: his mother," said, Janet DiFiore, spokesman for Westchester District Attorney, after Spears was convicted.
Spears, 27, chronicled her son's illnesses on a blog named "Garnett's Journey," as well as social media.
"She continued to portray him as a sick child for her own bizarre need for attention. She used that feeding tube as a weapon to kill him," Lloyd said.
The judge showed leniency in his sentencing in hopes that Spears will seek mental health treatment.
"[O]ne does not have to be a psychiatrist to realize you suffer from Munchausen by proxy," he told Spears, referring to the mental illness in which caretakers mistreat their patients to gain sympathy from others.
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