The infant was born in the bathtub of a Buckhead apartment, but never
taken to a doctor. The 6-week-old was dead when his parents took him to
Piedmont Hospital, across the street from their apartment, on April 25,
2004. He weighed 3 1/2 pounds and was so emaciated that doctors could
count his bones through his skin.



by giving him apple juice, which
worked as a diuretic and blocked the absorption of nutrients from the
soy milk, soy formula and breast milk. They never took Crown to a doctor
because they feared hospitals were infested with germs, he said

Wow, I just read this an am shocked. First time parents, fine. Nursing
was or should have been an option. AS for the apple juice...a six week
old cannot handle the juice. It causes diarhea and of course the child
would be dehydrated and the soy formula would do no good anyway. It
wouldn't really matter how much soy or regular formula the child were
fed, it would have dehydrated regardless. After raising 9 children of my
own, I know that there are signs to look out for and that should never
have been ignored. Whether the child was born at home or not, even as
new parents, "someone" else would have seen that child in the short six
weeks he did live. A family member or friend. Action should have been
taken then.

As for "beliefs" in food choices...great. Leave those for the adults who
can make their grown up decisions. Children cannot make their own. New
parents or not, the ignorance does not excuse the fact that you know
your own "first" child is in danger. Losing weight on a baby is
noted...not ignored. I have no sympathy. Unless those parents had the IQ
of a three year old, there is no excuse.

To Jess,
re:I don't agree with your last statement teacher...


Yes I understand that I am obligated to be another "set of eyes" and
that I could be the ONE person to help a child... I was making that
statement because teachers are having to take on more and more
responsiblilty that SHOULD be the PARENTS responsibility...

In addition to reporting neglect, abuse, etc. You would NOT believe the
pressure a teacher has these days!!!!!!!!

We basically have 3 jobs now, #1- teacher, #2-supplemental parent and #3
social worker!!! Honestly what has society become for this need?????

I work with youth, sorry, I hadn't mentioned that before, teacher...

Ages 12 to 25 are the classification for youth, here in Australia...but
I see all.

I am also obligated to report abuse, or what may appear as abuse, and at
times the lines are blurred.

It is a huge responsibility, and not one that can be taken lightly...

I look at my position, here, in my community, as an advocate, and a
voice, for young people, and parents, what the rest of the community may
feel is appropriate, are secondary to the needs of the young
person/people.

I elected to take this position, and it does come at a cost, both
personally, and socially, to have to wade into the sewers of society at
times...but I chose it.

just another sad example of what happens when we live in isolation and
not communities.Someone in a store or something must of seen this
baby.relatives etc.a tragedy all the way around but i still dont see the
criminal intent.Ignorance,stupidity yes,delibrate murder no.

Jax wrote:
“tragedy all the way around but i still dont see the criminal intent.
Ignorance, stupidity yes, delibrate murder no.”

I agree.

Ok, so one person dies, and we somehow feel that it’s good to destroy
the lives of two more people?

I just don’t get the ‘vengeance’ attitude at all.

Our courts are too anxious to make criminals out of people. I just
can’t believe that there was any criminal intent on the part of the
parents to kill their own child. Sending them to jail for being stupid
is in itself an act of horrendous stupidity.

Unless they were completely negligent. I mean, like totally not even
paying attention to the child at all. But it just doesn’t sound like
that was the case. I really have no clue what the details were. But
I’d have to hear some serious evidence of criminal neglect before I
could find them guilty.

I would have hated to have been on the jury. Had I been on that jury I
might have been the hold out. It’s hard to say without actually hearing
the case. But I would be very reluctant to vote guilty unless some
seriously criminal neglect could be shown. I just couldn’t send the
couple to life imprisonment for nothing more than being stupid. They
lost their child. Perhaps, that’s punishment enough?

These people NEVER took this child to a doctor NEVER from the time it
was born in a bathtub !
Because they were afraid of germs ? Are you kidding me you dont think
its criminal to watch a baby dwindle down to 3 1/2 lbs and say you didnt
know anything was wrong until the baby was dead ?

how big was the baby at birth? is it possible that it really didn't
lose that much...that it started out small?

wouldn't have been too hard to take him in...since they lived across the
street from the hospital.

I agree with the people who said that the prosecution went to far with
the sentence.
By common law to sentence a person for a crime the prosecution has the
burden of proof beyond the reasonable doubt that the person is guilty.
I'm sure that there must be some kind of bias that affected the
sentence.

Whatever the history, the beliefs, the reasons.

A child died.

And the parents of that child, have to live with it, for the rest of
their lives.

i know a woman who shook her baby to death. she only served a little
while...made a deal and became sterilized as a condition of release.

Ive been researching this like crazy to try to find the birth weight
there was no birth certificate for the baby .

Vegans parents sentenced to life for child murder
Malnourished 6-week-old boy weighed less than 4 pounds at death

By BETH WARREN
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 05/10/07

Lamont Thomas' mother fears he may soon die by staying true to his vegan
lifestyle.

The 31-year-old Buckhead resident was rail-thin, with a gaunt face and
bones protruding from his neck, when he shuffled into a Fulton County
courtroom Wednesday in leg and waist chains. There, a judge sentenced
him to life in prison in the 2004 starving death of his only child,
Crown.

The child's parents said they fed him organic and soy products but
doctors at Piedmont Hospital, the medical examiner and a nutritionist
specializing in veganism all testified at trial that the child had been
underfed, not just fed the wrong diet for an infant.

At six weeks, Crown weighed 3 1/2pounds, and doctors could count the
bones on his skeletal frame.

Carolyn Thomas defended her son, saying after the sentencing hearing:
"My son was afraid all along: 'Nobody understands us.' "

The Augusta resident acknowledges that she hasn't always understood
choices made by her son and his girlfriend, Jade Sanders, 27, who also
received an automatic life sentence in prison for malice murder.

The grandmother said she had urged them to take Crown to a doctor for a
checkup, but her son wanted to raise the baby without interference from
doctors. Thomas' attorney, Brandon Lewis, said the couple worried about
hospital germs.

Sanders told the judge during Wednesday's hearing: "I loved my son, and
I did not starve him."

Sanders delivered Crown in the bathtub of the Buckhead apartment she
shared with Thomas.

"She went through the pain of delivering herself and they don't think
that's love?" the child's grandmother said. The first time Crown's
parents took him to see a doctor, was on April 25, 2004. The baby was
already dead.

Thomas told the judge through tears that prosecutors had resources his
court-appointed attorney didn't have.

"It takes money to disprove their theories; money we don't have." he
said.

At the hospital, the parents said they fed their child organic apple
juice and soy milk, which has a label warning parents not to use it as
an infant food. At trial, the couple claimed they also fed the baby some
breast milk and soy milk formula.

The state's experts told the jury, which included four vegetarians, that
regardless of what the couple fed the baby, Crown should have been fine
if he'd been fed enough.

Fulton prosecutor Chuck Boring said the boy had a bed sore on his bottom
that showed he had been neglected, left lying on his back in a soiled
diaper for hours at a time. Defense attorneys said it was a diaper rash.

Thomas and Sanders say their child was born prematurely and tiny, but he
often smiled and laughed and they thought he was doing fine.

Carolyn Thomas says her son, who was already skinny, has dropped about
10 pounds in the week since his conviction. As a vegan, Thomas has a
more restricted diet than vegetarians and does not eat food such as
eggs, white bread, cheese, milk and meats, which are all mainstays on
jail menus.

Defense attorneys plan to file motions for a new trial, but Thomas'
family fears his time is running out.

Carolyn Thomas told her son's attorney: "He's not going to live much
longer if he doesn't eat."






bed sores...are not a good thing. it does say that the baby was
premature, however...

methinks grandma should have done more to help this kid.

kinda what i was thinking

maybe it was born early or with some kind of infliction

but there is no excuse for not going to doctor

did they do a few work up to see if there may have been an
underling health issue

just a thought

"The couple were found guilty May 2 of malice murder, felony murder,
involuntary manslaughter and cruelty to children."



hmmm...they only caused the death of ONE child...so why the heck are
they guilty of two counts of murder, plus manslaughter, plus cruelty?
three of those end in death...wasn't one enough?

abracadabra--that case where the baby "made" its own poison, that turned
up in its system as antifreeze, happened here in MO. That was really
bizarre. As I read, if these parents were so afraid to go to a hospital
because of germs, they had more difficulties than being vegans (not that
that is a difficulty; my son is a vegitarian). They were mentally ill,
but all the media keeps saying is they were vegans.

"abracadabra--that case where the baby "made" its own poison, that
turned up in its system as antifreeze, happened here in MO."

Yes, I remember now that they said it appeared to have been poisoned by
antifreeze!

Turned out to be a perfectly natural phenomenon produced by the child’s
own body!

Bizzare!

Okay abracadabra, not to get off topic, but have you seen the discovery
channel, "I am my own twin." Sounds hokey, but in these cases, the
mothers' DNA does not show up in the baby. They took this woman's
children away from her for lying about being their mother, and she was
their mother!

Rivergirl, that's interesting.

I don't have a TV anymore. Well, actually I have one, but I only use it
for DVDs and VCRs. I don't have a cable or antenna.

Nothing surprises me anymore. Even in this case, I mean, the parents
should have been weighing the baby. If they wanted to take matters into
their own hands and raise the kid by themselves they should have taken
steps to do it responsibly.

But even if the baby died from malnutrition, that doesn’t necessarily
mean that the parents weren’t feeding it enough. It could just be that
the baby’s metabolism didn’t assimilate the nutrients properly. Had it
been in the care of a hospital it might have died anyway. Who can say
with certainty? Bizarre things do happen.

In fact, I just heard on the radio the other day that hospital mishaps
are the 8th cause of death in the USA!

Maybe we should be sentencing our hospitals to life imprisonment?

Seems to me that’s awfully high on the list of major causes of death.

"As I read, if these parents were so afraid to go to a hospital
because of germs, they had more difficulties than being vegans (not that
that is a difficulty; my son is a vegitarian). They were mentally ill,
but all the media keeps saying is they were vegans. "



Let me clear soemthign u phere for those that do not know this.

A parentin the United States is required by law to take there children
to doctors etc. HOWEVER, because of seperatio of church and state and
all other religious rights issues, a person can get around this by
stating they do no t"believe" in doing so. That it goes against their
lifestyles. Another screwed up ting witht his issue is that even though
state public schools are required to verify immunizaitons of all
children, and children are required tog et said vaccins prior to school,
if they are refusing to do so because of lifestyle/religious beliefs
then the school still has to let the child in and teach them, even
without immunizations.

So please, even though I do not agree with these laws or anything, do
not continue going on about how the parents were wrong for not taking
the child in to the doctor. Morrally yes they were wrong and I agree.
However, legally, they were not.