North Texas mother who called herself a nurse readies for sentencing in Munchausen cases
FORT WORTH — Alicia Montes will be in a Tarrant County court Friday morning to see what kind of prison time Jesika Lynn Jones will get.
"I hope the book gets thrown at her and that key locks behind her for the rest of her life," Montes said. "Anybody that could harm their children like that needs to spend their life in jail."
On Jan. 10, Jones signed a plea deal for charges of injury to a child with serious bodily injury/mental and abandoning/endangering a child with reckless criminal negligence.
The jailed mother admitted to intentionally giving her children medication to the point of poisoning.
Tarrant County Sheriff Bill Waybourn said his deputies got a call from Cook Children's Medical Center. "And they called our office. Detective Mike Weber went to the scene. She confessed that she was poisoning her child."
Court documents reveal the 32-year-old was giving one child a mixture of Benadryl, Trazodone and Hydroxyzine. Doctors said the victim had toxicity from the Benadryl, which put her at risk of seizures, cardiac arrhythmias, respiratory suppression, coma and even death.
Another one of her children, investigators said, had been taken to the doctor for years, where Jones had tried to convince the child had seizures. Detectives said she posted on social media that different offspring had cancer, then deleted it. Investigators said she also tried to declare that her son was autistic. Detectives said the boy was 2 years old, too young to have that diagnosis.
Even out on bond, the authorities found out Jones violated her bond conditions by going back around children. It's believed she may suffer from Munchausen by proxy.
"Sociopath," Montes said.
The 44-year-old said she met Jones in December 2021 — roughly six months before a criminal arrest. The two had daughters who played on the Alpha Performance Softball team.
"My daughter has cavernous malformation. It is a pocket of blood vessels that did not form correctly, so it causes many things. One of the main things is seizures," she said.
Montes said when Jones came forward about her daughter suffering from seizures, she thought she'd gained a new pair of eyes to watch the girls in case something happened. But Montes said a red flag started rising.
"When I asked her for her child's doctor's names and she couldn't remember the doctor's names," Montes said.
The Fort Worth mother said she submitted name after name to Jones. Then, she said she tossed the name of one of her daughter's retired doctors to Jones, who said, "That's him."
Jones also claimed she was a nurse, which Montes said no team member or parent ever believed. Investigators called Jones a habitual liar who told others she was a nurse. Deputies never found proof of that.
Montes suspects her daughter could have been poisoned by medication, too. By the time the allegation came to mind, investigators said they had missed their window to test Montes' daughter.
The acquaintance with Jones, she said, was damaging to their softball family, but it also brought them closer. She said they even supported Jones' ex-husband throughout the investigation and arrest.