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 Lacey Spears, 27, who chronicled her son Garnett's illnesses on a
personal blog called "Garnett's Journey" and other social media, was
convicted by a jury in White Plains, New York, last month of
second-degree murder in his 2014 death at Westchester Medical
Center.
Prosecutors said Spears loaded the hospitalized boy's feeding tube
with a lethal amount of salt and kept on blogging.
Spears' lawyer Stephen Riebling said she was innocent, blamed the
hospital for negligence, and said he plans to appeal the verdict.
While awaiting sentencing, where she faces a maximum penalty of 25
years to life in prison, she was being held at Westchester County
jail in Valhalla, said a spokesman for Westchester District Attorney
Janet DiFiore.
 Prosecutors blamed Spears, who lived in Chestnut Ridge, about 32
miles (51 km) north of New York City, for her son's short and
tormented life.
“Throughout his five years, Garnett Spears was forced to suffer
through repeated hospitalizations, unneeded surgical procedures and
ultimately poisoning with salt, all at the hands of the one person
who should have been his ultimate protector: his mother," DiFiore
said after Spears was convicted.
"Using the child’s 'illnesses' to self aggrandize herself, her
actions directly lead to her son’s tortured death," the prosecutor
said.
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Spears told investigators that her blond, blue-eyed son, whose
father was killed in a car accident, suffered from a slew of medical
problems from Chrohn's and Celiac diseases to ear abnormalities,
according to court papers.
Her social media posts about his ongoing problems and
hospitalizations, including photos of his final hours on life
support, were introduced as evidence by the prosecution at trial.
Spears had moved with Garnett from Decatur, Alabama, to Clearwater,
Florida, to Chestnut Ridge, where they lived in The Fellowship
Community, a non-profit residential community focused on
back-to-earth living.
(Reporting by Barbara Goldberg; Editing by Scott Malone, Bernard
Orr)
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