Monday, January 26, 2015
WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. (AP) — A confounding and heartbreaking murder case alleging that a mother purposely poisoned her 5-year-old son with salt and documented his decline on social media began today in the New York suburbs.
Lacey Spears, 27, of Scottsville, Ky., who presented herself online as a supremely devoted mother, is charged with depraved murder and manslaughter in the death a year ago of Garnett-Paul Spears.
"This mother was intentionally feeding her child salt at toxic levels," prosecutor Doreen Lloyd said at Spears' arraignment.
The boy's sodium levels rose to a dangerous point with no medical explanation, prosecutors said, leading to a swollen brain, seizures and death. They believe his single mother, who was sharing his hospital room at Westchester Medical Center, administered salt through a feeding tube into Garnett's stomach.
All the while, she was keeping followers up to date with 28 online postings in the last 11 days of his life, noting his death with, "Garnett the great journeyed onward today at 10:20 a.m." She had tens of thousands of entries over Garnett's lifetime, many about his doctor and hospital visits.