A 31-year-old mum has been arrested after she allegedly subjected her three-year-old son to months of medical abuse, including surgeries and a deeply intrusive feeding tube
A mum has been arrested and is facing several criminal charges after she allegedly subjected her three-year-old son to horrendous medical abuse and caused him serious bodily injury.
Kaitlyn Laura is accused of medically abusing her son for at least a year, claiming he had cerebral palsy in order to submit him to unnecessary and deeply intrusive medical procedures. This allegedly included force-feeding him using a tube connected to his stomach, according to reports by multiple US news outlets including CBS.
The 31-year-old is also reported to have forced her son to use a wheelchair, despite being able to walk, as well as subjecting him to several unnecessary surgeries.
Both the Dallas Morning News and CBS News reported to have seen an arrest report that described Laura as telling the gastrointestinal team at a local medical centre in Forth Worth, Texas that her son had “eating problems” and that these issues were “detoriating”. The boy’s dad strong denies the claims and said that his son eats “without an issue”, according to PEOPLE magazine.
Despite this, the boy was implanted with a feeding tube through his stomach. Medical staff reportedly became suspicious however after seeing the child “eat multiple meals by mouth” despite Laura telling them he was having problems.
They also reportedly saw him attempt to stand up despite his mother insisting he uses a wheelchair, according to local outlet The Dallas Morning News. Laura is also alleged to have set up a crowdfunding page to raise money for her child’s apparently bogus medical needs.
Medical officials reported the alleged medical abuse to the Child Protection Services in June last year. A separate report was made after teachers at the boy’s school described how the boy “ambulates about campus independently without the use of his gait trainer or wheelchair”, despite his mum’s description of his condition.
She reportedly removed her son from the school shortly after the claim was made. The mum was arrested on March 19 in relation to accusations of medical child abuse resulting in serious bodily injury to a child, according to the Tarrant County Sheriff’s Office. She also faces a separate charge of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.
She was released the following week on a $75,000 bond (£56,000). A month before the arrest the boy was reportedly put into foster care.
Tarrant County Sheriff Bill Waybourn said: “This narcissistic person, for their own pleasure of getting the sympathy for having a fragile child, is what we see playing out in front of us … the child is being tortured.
“There are scars on his body from those surgeries that weren’t necessary, and he’s going to have to be told, ‘Why are they here?’ So there could be trauma for many, many years to come.”
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