A heartless Westchester mother was convicted of murder on Monday after she slowly poisoned her young son with salt while she blogged that he was falling ill from natural causes.
Lacey Spears, 27, faces life in prison for what Westchester District Attorney Janet DiFiore called 5-year-old Garnett’s “tortured death.”
“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,” said District Attorney Janet DiFiore in a press release.
A straight-faced Spears showed little emotion as the verdict was read while her father and sister held each other in court. They refused to comment.
Garnett’s father, Chris Hill, told The Post that his former flame’s “heartless and emotionless” reaction proves that the jury made the right decision.
“She’s sick and needs to stay locked up for the rest of her short life,” Hill said. “I hope they don’t give her special treatment and don’t put her in solitary. She needs to be put in the general population so she has to fear for her miserable life every day.”
Throughout the trial, prosecutors argued that the “calculated child killer” made up young Garnett’s sickness, which she documented on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and her own personal blog.
They said Spears used her blue-eyed boy’s feeding tube to force salt into his stomach, which led to a swollen brain, seizures and eventually his death.
In her posts, Spears detailed Garnett’s various health problems that caused him to be unable to eat food or gain weight. He had a feeding tube in his abdomen following an illness he had as a newborn, which Spears said resulted in 23 visits to the hospital before he turned 1.
Hospitals were one of the only constants in Garnett’s life — as Spears brought him from Florida to Rockland County to join a fellowship community about a year before he died.
Garnett died at Maria Fareri Children’s Hospital on Jan. 23, 2014, four days after he was admitted and doctors discovered his skyrocketing salt levels.
“It is still a mystery as to what caused Garnett’s death,” Spears’ lawyer, Stephen Riebling, said in court Monday.
He added that he was “disappointed” with the verdict and plans to appeal the case.
But DiFiore said she is “confident the conviction will be upheld.”
A former friend who knew Spears in her hometown of Decatur, Alabama told The Post that she’s kept up with the trial online.
“I’m happy we got justice for Garnett, but I’m sad because we lost a little boy that shouldn’t have died,” Shawna Lynch said.
While it was not brought up in the trial, doctors have speculated that Spears has a rare psychological syndrome, Munchausen by proxy. It causes a parent to intentionally harm their child for attention.
She is due back in court April 8 for her sentencing.