Kristen LaBrie, the Salem, Mass., mom found guilty of attempted murder for withholding chemotherapy medications from her autistic son, was sentenced to eight-to-10 years in prison today.

Prosecutors in the case argued that LaBrie committed murder by withholding potentially lifesaving medications for her 9-year-old son, Jeremy Fraser. The defense admitted that LaBrie knowingly withheld her son's medications, but said she did so only because of their painful side effects.

"I am remorseful for my actions. I wish I could have done things differently," LaBrie said, while sobbbing, the Associated press reported. "I certainly miss my son every day. I'm really sorry for all of this."

Prosecutors asked for a harsher jail term of 16 years. LaBrie's lawyer hoped for a one-year sentence.

Superior court Judge Richard Welch expressed sympathy for the "tremendous pressures" LaBrie faced raising a disabled child as a single mom, but said withholding the boy's treatment was "an extended, secretive and calculated act that chills the soul," the Associated Press reported.

During opening statements last week, Assistant District Attorney Kate MacDougall alleged that LaBrie, 37, knew how important it was for her son to take the prescribed medications.

Not to have done so would have been like pushing him in front of a car," MacDougall told jurors during her opening statement. Still, MacDougall said, LaBrie allegedly told others that she did not give her son the necessary medications while falsely telling others she did


Her attorney, Kevin James, said that LaBrie was a single mother with "severe financial problems" who bore the burden of taking care of her son. As a young child, Jeremy Fraser had been diagnosed with autism.

James said LaBrie's mental state led her to initially lie about giving Jeremy his medications.

"She made a decision in her mind to stop the medication. The decision was not made consciously," James told the court in his opening statement.

In October 2006, 9-year-old Jeremy was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, but doctors gave him an 85 percent to 90 percent chance of recovery, MacDougall said during the arraignment in 2009. Large doses of chemotherapy were given to the boy in the hospital, and his cancer went into remission.

His mother was given prescriptions for medications he was to be given at home. During the arraignment, MacDougall said LaBrie repeatedly failed to pick up prescriptions but led doctors to believe she was getting them filled, even asking at one point for a liquid version of the medication because her son was having difficulty swallowing pills.

"Miss LaBrie never expressed any misgivings about the treatment," MacDougall said.

In February 2008, after one of Jeremy's doctors called LaBrie's pharmacy and learned she had not been filling prescriptions, LaBrie said the pharmacy must have made a mistake, MacDougall said.

It was at that point that doctors learned the boy's cancer had returned as leukemia and was no longer treatable with chemotherapy, she said. The boy died in 2009.

"She is a victim. She is the mother who took care of her child," James said.

LaBrie, 37, had earlier been charged with child endangerment. A grand jury returned the more serious indictment Friday.

The alleged withholding of medication took place while the boy was mostly in LaBrie's care, authorities said.

LaBrie claimed in probate court documents that Fraser, the boy's father, chronically missed visits with his son and did not have contact with his school or doctors during the boy's chemotherapy.

"No assistance with care," she wrote in documents filed in April 2007


http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Autism/kris...d=13383251

Oh, YUCK.


I don't know what to think here.


but I must confess, my reaction was "Was it because he was autistic?" and "YUCK, why all the empathy for HER?"

Chemotherapy causes pain. I can see why she withhold it from him especially if it didn't work.

It did work. He had been in remission until she stopped giving him at-home treatments.  Which she lied about, claiming she was still giving them to him, never telling doctors any concerns she had about side effects.

I'm just glad she was convicted (and that the judge didn't listen to these people):

From http://www.thestar.com/news/world/articl...drugs?bn=1

there are a lot of wicked people out there evidently

Lucky Kristen... she'll be out in a few years with no more sick or autistic kid to take care of. Freeeee!!!1


YUCK.

She might want to get her tubes tied

It was a good thing she got thumped by Thor's hammer of justice, at least at a time when it works.

Hopefully the real thumping is to come when people find out what she did when shes inside.

Why all the empathy for the mom, because if they don't clIm she was a martyr on behalf of her child, the newspaper will have swarms of moms writing in that they feel attacked. I know, it's not like moms have more important things to so with their time, like parent their own kids.

Probably did not fill prescriptions because of financial problems.  More likely this situation was due to that rather than because he was autistic.

Yeah, right, M.

I don't buy that, not in a million years.

And other 'mothers' of autistic kids sympathizing/empathizing? that makes them nothing but monsters, the sort of mind that can empathize with that sort of heartless criminal, is about the most disgusting example of humanity its possible for there to be.

You wouldn't cover things up if it was for financial reasons. You would go to the papers, go to the charities, to your neighbours. Plead, beg, exhort, work your arse off, lie, cheat, steal for that money, not go to elaborate lengths to have everybody believe your little autistic kid was getting his chemo.

I will never have the kids I so want, but if I had, and poverty were the thing stopping me? if begging, charity fundraising, hard work, or crime didn't pay off? I would even kill to get my kid the meds they needed to save their life.

This post was last modified: 04-17-2011 07:02 PM by Lestat.

Another great post by Lestat!


Except everyone needs empathy; I admit that now. She should just be getting empathy without them allowing her to do what she did; she needs psychiatric help.

Or alternatively, a foot up her arse.

That can actually feel good. And it would at the same time, because of that, stimulate her to think.