A mother in southern Utah, who admitted to starving her son while locking him in a feces-covered bathroom, was sentenced up to 45 years in prison on Monday.
Brandy Jaynes, 36, pleaded guilty to causing her son extreme malnutrition, emotional and mental delays, and protracted use of limbs, The Spectrum reports. She was ordered to serve three 1 to 15 year sentences consecutively in Utah State Prison.
In January, the 12-year-old boy’s father, Russell Jaynes, rescued him from the mother’s house, and found him lying in a blanket on a feces-covered bathroom floor. The door was locked from the outside, and had an audible alarm system to alert Jaynes if the boy tried to escape. She also had connected a baby monitor to show a live feed into the bathroom.
After witnessing his son’s horrid condition, Russell took the boy to the hospital, where a doctor said he weighed only 33 pounds.
The boy was low on vitamins, his skin was peeling, and he suffered pressure sores from lying in the same spots on “his bony extremities,” according to The Spectrum.
Crime scene evidence led officials to believe that the boy was held in isolation for about 7 to 8 years.
Officials said that Jaynes “continually lied” to Russell and prevented him from seeing the boy for more than a year-- by making verbally violent threats and excuses, The Spectrum reports.
The boy did not appear in Jaynes’ court hearings, but wrote a letter describing the mother’s cruelty.
"Instead of eating breakfast, lunch and dinner, I would only get one meal of a couple of hot dogs every other day for months, the letter stated. “I felt frozen when I was drenched with ice cold water in the winter."
The defense attorney said to The Spectrum that Jaynes dealt with “personal issues” and “became addicted to heroin and Methamphetamine” about four months before the boy was found by his father.
He also said Jaynes felt “overwhelmed by having a child with severe special needs,” The Spectrum reports.
“This is the story of a woman who began to fail in her duties to her family, in particular to one son who needed help in a different matter, and she failed in that regard and things got worse,” the attorney said to The Spectrum.
The boy, now 13 years old, showed signs that he still wants a relationship with his mother, stating in his letter that “she did horrible things to me, but she’s still my mom.”
Russell faces charges of third-degree felony reckless child abuse, for allegedly not helping the child soon enough, officials said to The Spectrum. He is scheduled to appear in court on Sept. 19.
Read more at thespectrum.com
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