Mom Guilty Of Attempted Murder For Denying Son Meds
LAWRENCE (CBS/AP) - A Salem mother was convicted on Tuesday of attempted murder for withholding cancer medications from her autistic son.
Kristen LaBrie was also found guilty of reckless endangerment of a child and assault and battery for failing to provide at-home medications for at least five months after her son, Jeremy Fraser, was diagnosed with non-Hodgkins lymphoma. He died at age 9 in 2009.
WBZ-TV's Peg Rusconi reports
Labrie will not learn her fate until later in the week. The judge delayed the sentencing until Friday, allowing the defense to gather letters of support in Labrie's favor. She could face up to 40 years in prison if she receives the maximum sentence on all charges.
WBZ NewsRadio 1030's Bernice Corpuz reports
Podcast
LaBrie said she followed doctors' orders for the first four phases of her son's treatment, but stopped giving him medications in the final phase because the medications were making him so sick that she was afraid the treatments would kill him.
Prosecutors portrayed her as a single mother seething with resentment because she had to care for Jeremy alone.
LaBrie, who appeared teary-eyed but resigned as the verdict was read, consoled her sobbing sister in the front row.
"Tell everybody I'm OK. It's going to be OK. I love you, too," LaBrie said.
Jeremy's oncologist, Dr. Alison Friedmann of Massachusetts General Hospital, had testified that she told LaBrie her son's cancer had a cure rate of 85 percent to 90 percent under a two-year, five-phase treatment plan that included some hospital stays, regular visits to the hospital clinic to receive chemotherapy treatments and at-home administration of several cancer medications.
Friedmann said the boy's cancer went into remission after months of treatment. But in early 2008, Friedmann said she discovered that the cancer had returned in the form of leukemia and that LaBrie had not filled at least five months of prescriptions she was supposed to give him.
LaBrie, testifying in her own defense, told the jury that she followed the instructions from her son's doctors for the first four phases of treatment but stopped giving her son the medications during the final phase because she "didn't want to make him any sicker."
LaBrie said she told her son's doctor two or three times that she was afraid that "he just had had it."
"He was just not capable of getting through any more chemotherapy," LaBrie said. "I really felt that it could out-villainize the disease -- the medicine could -- because he was very, very fragile."
LaBrie's lawyer, Kevin James, told the jury LaBrie was depressed and overwhelmed by caring for her son, who was severely autistic, nonverbal and developmentally delayed. James said she made a "tragic mistake" in stopping her son's at-home medication, but said her actions were not criminal.
The guilty verdict upset Labrie's family members, who maintain Labrie did the best she could under tough circumstances.
"It's too hard for them to now what sis ter going through at that time. Nobody was there, just me and close family members," said Elizabeth O'Keefe, LaBrie's sister. "I don't think my sister had any intentions of hurting Jeremy ever. I never will believe that in my life."
LaBrie and the boy's father, Eric Fraser, had a contentious relationship. LaBrie said she received very little help from him, even after their son was diagnosed with cancer.
After doctors discovered LaBrie had withheld the medications, Jeremy went to live with his father for the last year of his life.
Eric Fraser was killed in a motorcycle accident seven months after his son died.
Fraser's family members wept in the back row of the courtroom as the verdict was read.
"My brother has passed away, he's playing with his son, and that's all he's really concerned about right now," said Andrew Fraser, the boy's uncle.
LaBrie will be sentenced Friday morning. She faces a maximum sentence of 20 years on the attempted murder charge, 10 years on a charge of assault and battery on a disabled person, five years on assault and battery on a child causing substantial injury and 2 1/2 years on reckless endangerment of a child.
(TM and © Copyright 2010 CBS Radio Inc. and its relevant subsidiaries. CBS RADIO and EYE Logo TM and Copyright 2010 CBS Broadcasting Inc. Used under license. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
