Hi! I saw this in the Friday, April 30th edition of our Buffalo (NY) News.
Does anyone have any info. on how this case is going?
"Mother of starved baby lacked healthy breast milk, defense says" by
Katherine Roth - Associated Press
"NEW YORK - A young woman accused of starving to death her newborn
was a loving mother who didn't realize her surgically reduced breasts lacked
adequate nourishment, her lawyer said Thursday.
Prosecuters charge Tabitha Waldrond deliberately starved her
2-month-old baby to get back at the boy's father, who had taken another
girlfriend.
"This is a tragedy, from the moment this child died to this day,"
said Ms Waldrond's lawyer, Susan V. Tipograph. If ignorance were a crime,
"we'd need a much larger courtroom," she said.
Ms Waldrond, 21, on trial for manslaughter, was at risk for
breast-feeding failure because of the reduction operation she'd had when she
was 15, but doctors didn't warn her about the danger, Ms. Tipograph said.
The baby weighed barely 5 pounds when he died in August 1997, nearly
3 pounds less than his birth weight.
The boyfriend, Keenan Purrell, testified that Ms. Waldrond exploded
when he informed her that he had a new girlfriend.
The 21-year-old former security guard said he assured Ms. Waldrond he
would help her with the baby, although he had spoken with her rarely during
her pregnancy.
"My son was beautiful to me, but he was skinny," he testified
Thursday.
Purrell said Ms. Waldrond had refused to give the baby formula,
saying the baby should only be breast-fed.
Ms. Tipograph said that when her client sought help for her baby, a
health center turned her away because she lacked a Medicaid card."
Can you believe the headline? Of course, my newspaper hasn't had any more
articles on this case since this one last week.
Katie Constantino
LLLL and WIC BF Counselor
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