Love, Lacey (The Garnett Spears Story)
“I hear them talking about me as I walk by.” They call me ‘baby killer,’ and “mother of the year” but I just ignore them because I know inside, that is not the person that I am”
These are the words of twenty-eight-year-old Lacey Spears, who was convicted in March of 2015 of murdering her five-year-old son by administering lethal doses of salt through his feeding tube. It is suspected that Lacey suffers from Factious Disorder Imposed on Another (FDIA) formerly Munchausen Syndrome by proxy (MSP) a psychological disorder in which a child’s primary caretaker, most commonly the mother, fabricates or causes real symptoms in the child to garner attention for themselves. The individual with FDIA gains attention by seeking medical care for exaggerated or completely fake symptoms of the child. Lacey denies this diagnosis stating she has undergone a thorough psychological evaluation and does not have the condition, but experts believe that her history with Garnett, the many hospitalizations and the trail of then-unexplained medical conditions which plagued her young son say otherwise.
The exact cause of factitious disorder imposed on another (FDIA) is unknown, but some research suggests that the early loss of a primary caretaker or a history of childhood abuse or neglect may increase the likelihood of developing the disorder. What is know is that a person with FDIA uses the many trips to the doctor, hospitalizations and complicated medical treatments often provided their child as a means of earning praise for their devotion to their child. They will often use the illness as a way of garnering sympathy and concern from friends, family, physicians and peripheral hospital staff, basking in the attention of being a suffering mother with a sick child.
And in Lacey’s case, that is exactly what happened.
Garnett came into the world in the winter of 2008, the product of a relationship between Lacey and a mystery man by the name of Blake, a police officer who was supposedly killed in auto accident prior to the baby’s birth. Friends and family members who were close to Lacey during this time, never met Blake or even heard his name. Garnett’s real father, a garage door installer named Chris Hill, never even got to meet his son.
Garnett arrived healthy but almost immediately, began to develop problems with malnutrition and dehydration. When the child was life flighted to Children’s Hospital of Alabama in 2009, he was “so severely dehydrated his tiny 2 ½ month old body was in shock.” Said Dr. Robert Pass who cared for Garnett during his hospital stay. A blood draw showed significantly high levels of sodium. “An MRI, EEG, CT, chest X-Ray and swallowing study were completed in a effort to get to the bottom of Garnett’s problem and all of tests were normal” testified Dr. Pass at Lacey’s trial in March of 2014. “We never did figure out what was causing the elevated sodium levels.”
The medical tests did not isolate the problem. In fact, it got worse.
According to Lacey’s social media posts, in the first year of his life, Baby Garnett was hospitalized 23 times, once for almost five weeks and by the time he had reached nine months old, his doctors were concerned he was not receiving the essential nutrients he needed to survive and surgically placed a feeding tube directly into his stomach. It was a decision that would prove instrumental in his death.
The feeding tube is normally used in a hospital setting but can also be used at home but a method of treatment to be used when all other solutions have been exhausted and this was no exception. Multiple physicians submitted to Lacey the suggestion that Garnett’s feeding tube be removed when it seemed the child was improving but Lacey was resistant to the idea. Instead, each time a doctor wanted to remove the tube, she took her son to a new doctor and a new hospital where the clinicians were not as familiar with the child or the history. Time and time again, the symptoms lessened while Garnett was under the care of the medical staff but flared up once he returned home.
With each stay, Lacey’s group of sympathizers continued to grow. According to their online posts, they enveloped the frazzled mom in their prayers and well wishes when hope seemed out of reach and celebrated with her when Garnett rallied against yet another mysterious ailment.
Lacey’s online posse followed the little makeshift family as they moved from her hometown of Decatur, AL to Clearwater, FL where she and Garnett lived for a time with her grandmother. Life in Clearwater seemed tranquil, but the peace was short lived. Garnett’s medical issues continued to persist. In Lacey’s words, “The main problem we had was we could not get him to eat and he would projectile vomit.” Many of Lacey’s friends commented that although the boy ate well for them and seemed to experience no issues, they never saw Lacey prepare food for Garnett and she always fed him through the feeding tube.
Spears moved to Fellowship Community, a commune-like enclave located in Chestnut Ridge, N.Y, 35 miles northwest of New York City. It was Lacey’s hope that the organic-based life style would be good for Garnett and both she and her child seemed to thrive there. She assisted in caring for the seniors who resided in the community and everyone loved the bright-eyed little boy.
“Something just did not seem right.”
Garnett’s pediatrician testified that he noticed that Garnett seemed fine at his first pediatric appointment on March 22, 2013. “Garnett was playful, trotting happily around the office.” Despite his mother’s report that he had been suffering high fevers and seizures. “Something just did not seem right” He told the court that his priority had always been to remove the tube and he had originated numerous conversations with Lacy Spears to this effect. The mother was always resistant to consenting to the necessary testing.”
When another hospital physician, Dr, Ivan Danenov, told Spears that Garnett needed a biopsy to rule out celiac disease, Lacey readily agreed to the painful procedure, but was resistant to the suggestion of a nutritional evaluation that might allow the removal of her child’s feeding tube.
“It was my priority to remove Garnett’s feeding tube. I had numerous conversations with Lacy Spears to this effect and the mother was always resistant to consenting to the necessary testing.”
The feeding tube was to be the solution everyone had hoped for but even after insertion, Garnett’s problems continued, as did the hospitalizations. Lacey Spears told anyone who would listen that her son suffered from Crohn’s and Celiac disease, high fevers, seizures, as well as a slew of other conditions. Garnett was repeatedly admitted with elevated sodium levels and Lacey continued to act as the anguished mom of a kid with an unknown illness.
“She continued to portray him as a sick child for her own twisted need for attention.” said Assistant District Attorney Doreen Lloyd. During the trial. she described Garnett Spears as a normal, healthy youngster who illnesses were caused by his mother.
The last hospitalization brought Garnett to Nyack Hospital. Garnett had just been flown from Nyack Hospital to the Children’s Hospital in Westchester and Lacey Spears was dashing into his room when a doctor who had begun to put the facts together, intercepted her outside his room.
He told her it was not possible for the body of a 5-year-old to produce such high sodium levels. “Something is going on here,” he admonished.
Four short days later, Garnett was declared dead.
Two months later, the death of Garnett Spears was ruled a homicide by the Westchester Coroner’s Office. From the beginning, Spears, who resided with her son in the Fellowship Community in Chestnut Ridge, had asked her neighbor to remove the feeding bag containing the high concentration of sodium and had been caught on camera taking her son into the bathroom numerous times, shortly before his death, was the focus of the investigation.
Doctors notified police shortly after Garnett’s arrival there. By Tuesday afternoon, detectives had arrived and were interviewing Spears, her friends, family members and staff. Spears was told she was not allowed to leave the leave the pediatric ward but was still permitted to be with her son in his room.
Friends and others who remained at the hospital, and sources acquainted with the case, provided law enforcement with the details of into those final at Nyack Hospital and the Westchester Medical Center.
It started with Garnett being rushed to Nyack Hospital after suffering a seizure Friday, Jan. 17. Shortly after his arrival, Spears began posting online pictures of her son, one of him hanging out in his bed. She wrote he was well enough to be “up and running circles around the hospital”.
Police suspected Spears had poisoned her son with salt, possibly through a tube connected to his abdomen and lied about when she last used the feeding tube to feed him. One of the most damning pieces of evidence was uncovered during the investigation, thanks to a neighbor who lived near the Spears. According to the woman, Lacey Spears called her from her child’s deathbed on the morning of Jan. 22 and asked her to get rid of the bag. The neighbour did as she was asked and took the bag from the Spears’ home but later handed it over to authorities.
Police carefully scrutinized video surveillance from both hospitals. At Nyack, the boy was mostly restricted to a room with a video monitor trained on his small body. At Westchester Medical Center, video footage studied by law enforcement showed times when Spears took Garnett to the private bathroom and these trips were not filmed. The police believed it was during one of these trips that Lacey poisoned him for the last time.
In the final days leading up to Garnett’s death on Jan 23, his mother kept her followers updated about his condition on social media, sharing pictures of her only child dying as she urged supporters “Not to give up!!!”
“She used the feeding tube as a weapon to kill him,” Lloyd said. The judge described her as mentally unstable as he sentenced her to 20 years for the heartless murder of her only child.
“Your crime is bottomless in its cruelty. How a mother could ever treat her child in such a methodically calloused, inhumane manner, I will never comprehend.”
Lacey Spears, now incarcerated for 20 years to life for her crimes, complains of her fellow inmates pouring salt on her food before serving it to her. She states that adjusting to prison has been “brutal” but she refuses the offer of being moved to protective custody as she cannot bear the thought of being in solitary confinement for 23 hours each day. It would seem that even behind bars, Lacey has found a way to connect with her fans, giving interviews and even after her conviction and all of the evidence against her, she still protests her innocence.