Texas Tragedy: Mother Sentenced to 40 Years for Enabling Child Abuse Nightmare
A Harris County mother, Emily Aust (30), was sentenced on February 21, 2024, to 40 years in prison for not protecting her children from her boyfriend, Austin Reid (25).
Aust had a two-year-old child, Lucas Somora, from a previous relationship. On May 19, 2019, Reid took Lucas to Texas Children’s Hospital. Reid told doctors that Lucas drowned while playing in the bathtub. Lucas was pronounced dead at the hospital. However, doctors discovered the signs of repeated child abuse on Lucas’s body, including spinal cord hemorrhaging, optic nerve damage, many bruises, injuries, and at least 20 cigarette burns.
In late December 2019, Aust gave birth to a baby boy fathered by Reid. Five weeks after the baby was born, Reid was once again in the emergency room at the hospital. He told the doctor that the infant got his arm caught in a laundry basket about five days earlier. However, the doctors discovered that the infant had head trauma, a broken arm, a dislocated elbow, burns to his fingertips, and brain bleeding. The Texas Department of Children and Family Services took custody of the baby.