Vegan Parents Sentenced To Life For Starving Baby
A Fulton County vegan couple wasn’t shown any mercy in their case involving the starvation of their baby in 2005.
Jade Sanders, 27, and Lamont Thomas, 31, appealed their life sentences four years ago saying that they were vegans and did not know the baby’s life was in any danger.
In 2005, the two first time parents rushed Crown Shakur to the hospital after he began to have trouble breathing. Unfortunately, upon arrival doctors declared him dead after failing to resuscitate him.
The couple ate no animal products and only fed their baby soy milk and apple juice. Prosecutors also stated that they failed to seek medical treatment when their young son was wasting away.
When police searched the couple’s flat in Fulton County, Georgia, they found a soy milk bottle, an apple juice bottle, and a rancid-smelling baby bottle caked with debris.
Prosecutor Chuck Boring stood firm in his analysis of the baby dying strictly of starvation, not anything attributed to the vegan diet fed to the baby.
According to authorities, the child died of bronchopneumonia due to extreme malnourishment or starvation.Defense lawyers at the trial argued that Ms. Sanders never knew her baby was in danger.
“I loved my son – and I did not starve him.” Jade Sanders said at her May 2007 sentencing hearing. She said she fed her son breast milk and soy milk formula.
The Georgia Supreme Court upheld the murder conviction of the couple who claimed they were only sticking to their vegan lifestyle; still finding them guilty of murder and reaffirming their life imprisonment sentences.
In her appeal, Sanders’ lawyer argued the evidence wasn’t strong enough to support the verdict and Thomas’ lawyer claimed his trial attorney was ineffective because he failed to call an expert to support his theory that his son’s death was linked to cystic fibrosis and not starvation. The Supreme Court rejected the appeal unanimously and said the conviction was safe.
