Dad, Stepmom Sentenced To Life In 5-Year-Old Girl's Starvation Death
PORT HURON (WWJ/AP) - A Michigan couple has been sentenced to life in prison without parole in the death of their 5-year-old child, who had pneumonia and weighed just 25 pounds when an emergency crew found her last spring.
St. Clair County Circuit Judge Daniel Kelly said Thursday that others who saw what was happening to little Mackenzie Maison "and chose to do nothing are ... equally responsible for this crime," The Times Herald of Port Huron reported.
"What puzzles me is how, in a community so dedicated to combating child abuse and neglect, these conditions go undetected until it is too late," Kelly said.
Andrew Maison and his wife Hilery Maison, the girl's stepmother, were accused of abusing, torturing and starving Mackenzie in their Port Huron home, 60 miles northeast of Detroit. They were convicted in January of first-degree murder, child abuse and torture.
Police were called to the couple's home on May 26 after receiving a 911 call about an unresponsive child. Mackenzie was rushed to the hospital where, despite all efforts, she was declared dead.
Medical experts said Mackenzie weighed 25 pounds at the time of her death, and was also suffering from pneumonia and a genital infection.
Her 3-year-old sister Makayla also was malnourished and weighed 17 pounds. She has doubled her weight since Mackenzie's death and is now in foster care.
Prosecutors described both children as "severely neglected" and "severely malnourished," having been denied food over the course of "weeks to months."
Hilery Maison's defense lawyer told jurors there was no evidence that the couple intended for Mackenzie die. He also said the girls' health problems predated their time with their stepmother. Her two biological children, who were found to be healthy, were removed from the home.
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