Mother accused of fatally poisoning son with sodium

WHITE PLAINS, NY -- A young mother who documented her 5-year-old son's persistent illness on social media was arrested Tuesday, accused of fatally poisoning him with sodium.

Twenty-six-year-old Lacey Spears, of Scottsville, Kentucky, was indicted in White Plains on charges of depraved murder and manslaughter in the death of Garnett-Paul Spears, who died in January.

Investigators say Lacey Spears was desperate for attention and used her son as a tool to make it happen by publicly documenting his condition.

She made her first court appearance Tuesday, pleading not guilty, sitting in the courtroom with her head down for the most part.

Spears, who at the time was living in Chestnut Ridge, brought her son to Nyack Hospital in Rockland County on January 17, reporting he was having seizures. Two days later, with no medical explanation, Garnett-Paul's sodium levels rose to an extremely dangerous level.

Spears was sharing her son's hospital room, and prosecutors now believe the mother administered sodium through the boy's stomach tube. The boy was then transferred to the Westchester Medical Center, where he died.

"During the afternoon, that child goes from moderate to severe cerebral dysfunction," prosecutor Doreen Lloyd said in court. "And as that is going on, this child's sodium level is going up. It coincides with the actions of this defendant."

The Westchester County district attorney says doctors there suspected Spears was harming her son and called New York state children's services, which launched an investigation.

Lacey documented her son's various health problems using a public blog. And five months ago, investigators became curious and looked into her son's death, and that's when they started gathering mountains of evidence. Finally, a grand jury granted the indictment.

Meanwhile, Lacey's father was in the courtroom and left without commenting. Her lawyer did the same thing.

She was ordered held without bail. If she is convicted on the most severe charges, she could spend the rest of her life in prison.