A mother and father refused to properly feed their 10-month-old son, nearly killing him and leaving him quadriplegic, California prosecutors say.
Now, the Lindsay couple have each been “convicted of one felony count of child abuse and endangerment and one felony enhancement of causing great bodily injury to a child under the age of 5 years old,” the Orange County District Attorney’s Office said in a July 2 news release.
McClatchy News is not identifying the parents to protect the identity of the child.
McClatchy News could not immediately reach the parents, who represented themselves in court, for comment July 2.
As “followers of naturopathy,” the 38-year-old father and 45-year-old mother believe “the body can heal itself,” prosecutors said.
Weeks after their son was born, the couple “began putting the infant in high-temperature saunas and ice baths,” according to prosecutors.
The parents believed baby formula and breast milk were toxic and refused to feed them to their baby, prosecutors said.
Instead, investigators later learned the couple only fed the baby “soy-based baby formula, fruits, and vegetables,” as they were “vegan mucus-free fruitarians,” prosecutors said.
While on a road trip to Orange County, the parents walked into a Newport Beach emergency room on Aug. 1, 2020, “carrying their limp, unresponsive 10-month-old son,” prosecutors said.
“The baby was gray in color, emaciated, and catatonic,” according to prosecutors.
When doctors examined the boy, they found he “had extremely low blood sugar levels and suffered from hypoxia and constant seizures,” prosecutors said.
The baby was transferred to a children’s hospital, where its medical director of suspected child abuse and neglect determined the child’s low blood sugar levels were the result of him not being properly fed, prosecutors said.
This led to him becoming hypoxic, a condition where there is insufficient oxygen in the body’s tissues, prosecutors said.
Investigators soon learned that the parents had the child follow a vegan mucus-free fruitarian diet, like themselves, prosecutors said.
During the child’s monthlong stay at the hospital, the father refused to let staff give the boy “life-saving treatments,” telling them “he believed that starvation would lead to healing,” according to prosecutors.
The child’s paternal grandmother started contacting the Tulare County Department of Child Welfare Services in October 2019, worried about her grandson’s well-being, prosecutors said.
“Over the next several months,” she called the department 14 more times, saying her grandson “was still suffering,” prosecutors said.
The county “agreed to pay out $32 million to settle a lawsuit that accused public employees of being negligent in responding to reports of the abuse of an infant that resulted in brain damage,” an attorney said, the Fresno Bee reported in January 2023.
The settlement agreement with the child’s grandmother came from a voluntary mediation, a county spokesperson said in an emailed statement to McClatchy News on July 2.
“The County is sorry for what (the child) has experienced,” the spokesperson said. “It is a senseless tragedy that will affect (him) for the remainder of his life and he will remain in our thoughts.”
The settlement will be used toward the child’s “necessary lifelong health and wellness care,” the spokesperson said.
“The County of Tulare acted and settled in the best interests of everyone involved,” the spokesperson said.
The boy, now 5 years old, is quadriplegic and “continues to suffer from his injuries,” prosecutors said.
“He is blind and unable to walk, talk, or eat on his own,” according to prosecutors.
His severe malnutrition left him with permanent neurological damage, prosecutors said.
“This innocent child suffered from almost the first breath he took because of his parents’ beliefs that starvation would cure him,” Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer said in the release. “Instead of curing him, they robbed him of his sight, his ability to take his first steps, to say his first words, and his chance to see the world through the eyes of a child who is seeing everything for the first time. Tragically, he will never get to experience any of those milestones because his parents starved him nearly to death instead of giving him the nourishment he so desperately needed.”
The child’s paternal grandmother now has custody of him, prosecutors said.
The parents, who are being held without bail, are scheduled to appear in court July 25 and each face a maximum 12-year prison sentence, prosecutors said.