Mom gets 11 years for letting teen starve
September 3, 2005
BY DAN ROZEK Staff Reporter
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Brusquely rejecting Katherine Leonard's claims that she never realized her disabled 15-year-old son was dying, a McHenry County judge Friday sentenced the Crystal Lake mother to 11 years in prison.
"How could you not notice what he looked like?'' Judge Joseph Condon asked her as he held up a color photo showing a painfully emaciated Seamus Leonard, who weighed only 23 pounds when he died in March 2004. "I will not permit you to overlook your son starving in your house.''
Katherine Leonard, 46, sat stoically at first as Condon brandished the picture taken just after her son's death, then later began sobbing softly.
Seamus, who was born with cerebral palsy that left him a quadriplegic, was found dead on the floor of the family's filthy home, his body riddled with pressure sores and wearing only a soiled diaper.
An autopsy concluded Seamus died of pneumonia, although malnutrition and dehydration were listed as contributing causes. He weighed only about 2 pounds more at his death than he did when he was 3 years old, prosecutors said.
Leonard pleaded guilty earlier this year to criminal neglect of a disabled person as part of a plea bargain with prosecutors.
Despite the plea, she contended at her sentencing hearing that depression over her failed marriage, the stress of caring for Seamus and six siblings, and her own heavy drinking prevented her from grasping how dire his condition had become in the months before his death.
'Why should he not eat?'
"I was overwhelmed,'' Leonard said, insisting that she had tried her best to care for Seamus, who needed constant attention and monitoring.
"I loved my son from the moment I knew I was pregnant with him,'' she said. "I always loved Seamus.''
Condon, though, questioned why in the final two years before his death, she withdrew him from special education classes and quit taking him to doctors. In his final months, she fed Seamus only sporadically, according to testimony.
"You ate. You fed your other children,'' Condon said, noting that Leonard took two of her children out to dinner the night before Seamus died. "Why should he not eat?''
Leonard faced a 3- to 14-year prison term as a result of her guilty plea, although she also was eligible for probation. The sentence imposed by Condon means Leonard -- who already has spent a year in custody -- likely will spend about four more years behind bars.
McHenry County prosecutors had sought an 11-year prison term, saying it was clear Leonard ignored her son's deteriorating health.
Noting that Leonard admitted drinking heavily at times following the 2003 collapse of her marriage, Assistant State's Attorney Robert Beaderstadt said she had "given up on Seamus, and she had crawled into a vodka bottle.''
Before Leonard was taken out of the courtroom, she turned and tearfully hugged her former husband, Stephen, Seamus' father.
"My babies,'' she murmured, apparently referring to her other six children, who have been in foster care since Seamus' death.
Defense attorney Henry Sugden blasted the prison term imposed by Condon, calling it a "horrendous sentence.''
"We're very disappointed in it,'' said Sugden, who argued for probation.
http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/...-badmom03.html
Here's another good article about it:
http://www.belleville.com/mld/bellev...l/12553919.htm