Prosecutor: Mom was "calculating" in son's salt poisoning death
WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. -- A woman accused of killing her 5-year-old son by feeding him salt through a stomach tube calmly "watched and waited" for the poisoning to take effect, summoning help only after he began writhing and retching, a prosecutor said Tuesday.
Prosecutors in a suburban New York City courtroom called Lacey Spears a "calculating child killer," reports the Journal News.
In her opening statement, Assistant District Attorney Doreen Lloyd said Spears researched, planned, carried out and tried to cover up the killing of her blond, blue-eyed son, Garnett-Paul.
"It seems to go against nature," Lloyd said. "But Lacey Spears is not like most people." She said Spears enjoyed the "attention and sympathy" she received from having a sick child.
Spears, who moved to Scottsville, Kentucky after her son's death, had documented Garnett's declining health on social media. Garnett's death ended a short life filled with doctor and hospital visits that his mother tirelessly documented in thousands of postings on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and a blog.
Many of the postings will be in evidence.
"Although her son was incredibly special, he was not sick -- he was not sick until his mother made him sick," Lloyd said, reports CBS New York.
Just before opening statements began, Spears broke down in the courtroom, the Journal News reported. The woman, charged with second-degree murder and first-degree manslaughter, reportedly removed her glasses to wipe away her tears as a defense attorney brought her two packets of tissues.
Defense lawyer Stephen Riebling told the jurors there are no eyewitnesses and no direct evidence that the 27-year-old Spears poisoned her son.
He added: "There is no evidence in this case that legitimately answers the question `Why?'"
Lloyd alleged Spears fed her son the salt in the bathroom of a Nyack Hospital room after he was admitted. The mother had told doctors he was having seizures.
Lloyd told jurors they would see hospital video showing mother and son twice going into the bathroom and then see Garnett become ill soon afterward both times. He died of high sodium levels that caused swelling of the brain.
But the bathroom is out of the range of the camera, and Riebling noted that no one saw Spears feed her son salt.
He said, in context, Spears' actions show a caring mother.
He implored the jurors to "set aside emotion."
Riebling also appeared to blame the hospital in the New York suburbs near the Spearses' Chestnut Ridge home, noting it was only there that a high sodium level was detected.
He said the prosecution case was "riddled with reasonable doubt."
Spears' online research into the dangers of sodium in children and hospital records from New York, Florida and Spears' native Alabama will be in evidence in the case, along with her social media postings. Also in evidence is a feeding bag prosecutors believe was used to hold the salt - and which they say she tried to hide after Garnett's death.
Defense attorneys have insisted that there will be no mention of Munchausen by proxy, a disorder in which caretakers secretly harm children to win sympathy. Some experts believe that disorder fits Spears' actions.
The trial is reportedly expected to last three weeks.