Mother accused of withholding cancer drugs from sick son pleads guilty
A mother convicted of attempted murder for withholding chemotherapy medication from her son will not return to prison.
Kristen LaBrie plead guilty in Salem Superior Court on Wednesday and was sentenced to time served, said Carrie Kimball-Monahan at the Essex County District Attorney’s office.
The 44-year-old from Salem has already served five years in prison after she was convicted in 2011 of attempted murder, assault and battery, and reckless child endangerment.
In March, she was granted a new trial based on ineffective assistance of counsel. The Mass. Supreme Judicial Court agreed that her trial attorney’s decision to not bring in an outside oncologist was “manifestly unreasonable.”
LaBrie’s son Jeremy was diagnosed with a form of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma in 2006 at the age of 7. He was severely autistic, non-verbal, and suffered from a seizure disorder. LaBrie admitted that she didn’t follow through with a complicated at-home treatment for Jeremy. Prosecutors said she intended to kill Jeremy as an act of retaliation against the boy’s father, who she was separated from.
The boy’s father, Eric Fraser, died in a motorcycle crash in 2009. Jeremy also died in 2009.
A Salem Superior Court judge released LaBrie in April on personal recognizance while she awaited her new trial.
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