05-21-2014, 02:07 PM
Garnett Spears' last days: 'Something is not right here'
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Her son had just been airlifted by helicopter from Nyack Hospital to Maria Fareri Children's Hospital and Lacey Spears was rushing to be by his side when a doctor approached her outside his room.
He told her it was "metabolically impossible" for 5-year-old Garnett's body to have produced the extreme sodium levels found in his system.
"Something isn't right," the doctor told her sternly, according to two witnesses to the conversation.
That was Sunday night, Jan. 19. Four days later, Garnett was dead. It would be more than two months until Garnett's death was ruled a homicide by the Westchester medical examiner. But from the outset, Spears, who lived with her son in the Fellowship Community in Chestnut Ridge, was a focus of the investigation.
Doctors called police shortly after Garnett's arrival there. By Tuesday, detectives were at the medical center interviewing Spears, her friends and medical staff. Spears was told not to leave the floor, but was permitted to be with her son in the room.
Friends and others who were at the hospital, and sources familiar with the case, provided the first real glimpse into those final six days at Nyack Hospital and the Westchester Medical Center. They spoke to The Journal News on condition they not be identified because of the ongoing investigation.
It started with Garnett being taken to Nyack Hospital after a seizure Friday, Jan. 17. Shortly after his arrival, Spears began posting pictures of her son, one of him casually hanging out in his hospital bed. She stated he was well enough to run laps around the pediatric unit.
Things suddenly got worse Sunday afternoon, when Garnett had a seizure attack that prompted the emergency flight. The boy's blood sodium level spiked to a life-threatening level. Normal range is 135 to 145 milliequivalents per liter. Garnett's had surged to the mid-180s. A doctor told Spears in the presence of others that it was the highest sodium level he'd ever seen.
"He was fine in Nyack Hospital and then, all of a sudden, 'bam!'" one woman who was with Spears at the hospital said.
Garnett was held in Nyack another two hours so doctors could stabilize him enough to take the flight to Westchester, witnesses said.
Police suspect Spears may have poisoned her son with salt, possibly through a tube connected to his abdomen and may have lied about when she last fed him that way. They are looking at Garnett's death as a possible case of Munchausen by proxy, a psychiatric disorder that leads parents to sicken their children for attention or sympathy.
One potentially key piece of evidence is a feeding bag – also containing an extreme concentration of sodium – that police seized from the Fellowship. A neighbor told The Journal News that Spears secretly phoned her from the medical center early Wednesday, Jan. 22, and told her to get rid of the bag from her home. She removed the bag but later handed it over to authorities.
Spears has not been charged and has denied doing anything to harm her son. Her lawyer has declined to comment.
Spears' actions raised the suspicions not just of the medical staff and police, but also friends who found her behavior in both hospitals strange at best, deceptive at worst.
"Her behavior was just weird in the hospital," one friend said. "It was not the behavior of a grieving mother. She was more concerned about what everyone else was saying, or what investigators were asking people, or what people were saying on Facebook, than putting all that aside and taking care of her child."
One key discrepancy investigators are trying to nail down was exactly when Spears last fed her son through the tube.
Spears gave conflicting accounts, telling some it was more than a week before the seizure that landed Garnett in Nyack Hospital on Friday, Jan. 17. But another friend told authorities that she saw Spears feeding him through the tube that same day, hours before the seizure.
Police have reviewed video surveillance from both hospitals. At Nyack, the boy was mostly confined to a room with a video monitor trained on his body. At Westchester Medical Center, video footage reviewed by law enforcement shows times when Spears took Garnett to the room's private bathroom, which was not monitored by a camera.
In those final days leading to Garnett's Jan. 23 death, the 26-year-old kept friends updated about his condition on Facebook, sharing pictures of him dying as she urged followers to "keep the prayers coming!!!"
While farflung friends offered support, friends who spent time with Spears and Garnett at Nyack Hospital and the Valhalla medical center described a more disturbing picture.
One woman recalled the sedated Garnett waking briefly on Monday night, Jan. 20, catching her eye and pleading "Don't leave me."
Another woman said his speech was slurred, and "He was thirsty, asking for apple juice. He wanted to go home."
Garnett's final plea to these women echoed those he shared with someone else in Spears' circle the previous Friday. Hours before he was rushed to Nyack Hospital, Garnett begged the neighbor (the same woman Spears called to remove the feeding bag): "You promise you're going to come to my house and get me."
They all have replayed his final words countless times, wondering if he knew he was in danger, if his words were a cry for help.
The next morning, Garnett fell into a coma, never to regain consciousness. A doctor showed Spears pictures of the boy's swollen brain – and told her there was nothing more to be done.
Friends question several other things they observed at the hospitals, and accounts Spears shared during her time there.
One is that Spears told them she provided her son 100 ounces of water at Nyack Hospital by refilling her own bottle for him several times, on the Sunday Garnett's sodium level spiked. If she did, it's unclear why.
"Lacey said numerous times that he was very thirsty and she kept giving him water," said a woman who was with them at both hospitals.
Another curious sight was the apparently icy interaction between Spears and her mother, Tina, who flew in from Kentucky to be with her grandson in the days before he died.
Friends were surprised they didn't see the mother embracing her daughter. Some recalled Lacey telling them that, years earlier, Tina called child protective services to raise concerns about the way Spears was raising Garnett. The Journal News was unable to confirm whether such a call was made. Spears is staying with her parents in Kentucky.
There was other behavior that struck friends as odd.
When doctors asked about Garnett's medical history, Spears did not go into detail, despite his extensive history of hospitalizations.
Acquaintances were also disturbed to see Spears snapping cellphone photos of Garnett lying listlessly in his hospital bed. Friends had grown accustomed to seeing photos of Garnett in the hospital, but these last photos were more gruesome. In one, Garnett's legs are splayed at awkward angles.
"It was disgusting," said one woman who saw her taking the photos. "It was really disturbing. When your son is there and he's dying, you're going to want to hold his hand or pray or something like that."
"She was always doing something on her phone," the woman added.
Spears, with her son on life support, detailed her bedside vigil to friends on Facebook.
"Tonight I sat at the bedside of my beautiful amazing lively one of (a) kind son's bed," she wrote Wednesday, Jan. 22. "Knowing his soul is already with the angels. There's just no words to describe this horrible nightmare. Please pray. Garnett's journey into the next life is nothing short of amazing."
Then there was a final posting early Jan. 23. "Garnett the great journeyed onward today at 10:20 a.m."
Staff writer Peter D. Kramer contributed to this report
In late January, Garnett was transported from Nyack Hospital to Westchester Medical Center. He died Jan. 23. Westchester County Police subsequently launched an investigation.
link to article
Her son had just been airlifted by helicopter from Nyack Hospital to Maria Fareri Children's Hospital and Lacey Spears was rushing to be by his side when a doctor approached her outside his room.
He told her it was "metabolically impossible" for 5-year-old Garnett's body to have produced the extreme sodium levels found in his system.
"Something isn't right," the doctor told her sternly, according to two witnesses to the conversation.
That was Sunday night, Jan. 19. Four days later, Garnett was dead. It would be more than two months until Garnett's death was ruled a homicide by the Westchester medical examiner. But from the outset, Spears, who lived with her son in the Fellowship Community in Chestnut Ridge, was a focus of the investigation.
Doctors called police shortly after Garnett's arrival there. By Tuesday, detectives were at the medical center interviewing Spears, her friends and medical staff. Spears was told not to leave the floor, but was permitted to be with her son in the room.
Friends and others who were at the hospital, and sources familiar with the case, provided the first real glimpse into those final six days at Nyack Hospital and the Westchester Medical Center. They spoke to The Journal News on condition they not be identified because of the ongoing investigation.
It started with Garnett being taken to Nyack Hospital after a seizure Friday, Jan. 17. Shortly after his arrival, Spears began posting pictures of her son, one of him casually hanging out in his hospital bed. She stated he was well enough to run laps around the pediatric unit.
Things suddenly got worse Sunday afternoon, when Garnett had a seizure attack that prompted the emergency flight. The boy's blood sodium level spiked to a life-threatening level. Normal range is 135 to 145 milliequivalents per liter. Garnett's had surged to the mid-180s. A doctor told Spears in the presence of others that it was the highest sodium level he'd ever seen.
"He was fine in Nyack Hospital and then, all of a sudden, 'bam!'" one woman who was with Spears at the hospital said.
Garnett was held in Nyack another two hours so doctors could stabilize him enough to take the flight to Westchester, witnesses said.
Police suspect Spears may have poisoned her son with salt, possibly through a tube connected to his abdomen and may have lied about when she last fed him that way. They are looking at Garnett's death as a possible case of Munchausen by proxy, a psychiatric disorder that leads parents to sicken their children for attention or sympathy.
One potentially key piece of evidence is a feeding bag – also containing an extreme concentration of sodium – that police seized from the Fellowship. A neighbor told The Journal News that Spears secretly phoned her from the medical center early Wednesday, Jan. 22, and told her to get rid of the bag from her home. She removed the bag but later handed it over to authorities.
Spears has not been charged and has denied doing anything to harm her son. Her lawyer has declined to comment.
Spears' actions raised the suspicions not just of the medical staff and police, but also friends who found her behavior in both hospitals strange at best, deceptive at worst.
"Her behavior was just weird in the hospital," one friend said. "It was not the behavior of a grieving mother. She was more concerned about what everyone else was saying, or what investigators were asking people, or what people were saying on Facebook, than putting all that aside and taking care of her child."
One key discrepancy investigators are trying to nail down was exactly when Spears last fed her son through the tube.
Spears gave conflicting accounts, telling some it was more than a week before the seizure that landed Garnett in Nyack Hospital on Friday, Jan. 17. But another friend told authorities that she saw Spears feeding him through the tube that same day, hours before the seizure.
Police have reviewed video surveillance from both hospitals. At Nyack, the boy was mostly confined to a room with a video monitor trained on his body. At Westchester Medical Center, video footage reviewed by law enforcement shows times when Spears took Garnett to the room's private bathroom, which was not monitored by a camera.
In those final days leading to Garnett's Jan. 23 death, the 26-year-old kept friends updated about his condition on Facebook, sharing pictures of him dying as she urged followers to "keep the prayers coming!!!"
While farflung friends offered support, friends who spent time with Spears and Garnett at Nyack Hospital and the Valhalla medical center described a more disturbing picture.
One woman recalled the sedated Garnett waking briefly on Monday night, Jan. 20, catching her eye and pleading "Don't leave me."
Another woman said his speech was slurred, and "He was thirsty, asking for apple juice. He wanted to go home."
Garnett's final plea to these women echoed those he shared with someone else in Spears' circle the previous Friday. Hours before he was rushed to Nyack Hospital, Garnett begged the neighbor (the same woman Spears called to remove the feeding bag): "You promise you're going to come to my house and get me."
They all have replayed his final words countless times, wondering if he knew he was in danger, if his words were a cry for help.
The next morning, Garnett fell into a coma, never to regain consciousness. A doctor showed Spears pictures of the boy's swollen brain – and told her there was nothing more to be done.
Friends question several other things they observed at the hospitals, and accounts Spears shared during her time there.
One is that Spears told them she provided her son 100 ounces of water at Nyack Hospital by refilling her own bottle for him several times, on the Sunday Garnett's sodium level spiked. If she did, it's unclear why.
"Lacey said numerous times that he was very thirsty and she kept giving him water," said a woman who was with them at both hospitals.
Another curious sight was the apparently icy interaction between Spears and her mother, Tina, who flew in from Kentucky to be with her grandson in the days before he died.
Friends were surprised they didn't see the mother embracing her daughter. Some recalled Lacey telling them that, years earlier, Tina called child protective services to raise concerns about the way Spears was raising Garnett. The Journal News was unable to confirm whether such a call was made. Spears is staying with her parents in Kentucky.
There was other behavior that struck friends as odd.
When doctors asked about Garnett's medical history, Spears did not go into detail, despite his extensive history of hospitalizations.
Acquaintances were also disturbed to see Spears snapping cellphone photos of Garnett lying listlessly in his hospital bed. Friends had grown accustomed to seeing photos of Garnett in the hospital, but these last photos were more gruesome. In one, Garnett's legs are splayed at awkward angles.
"It was disgusting," said one woman who saw her taking the photos. "It was really disturbing. When your son is there and he's dying, you're going to want to hold his hand or pray or something like that."
"She was always doing something on her phone," the woman added.
Spears, with her son on life support, detailed her bedside vigil to friends on Facebook.
"Tonight I sat at the bedside of my beautiful amazing lively one of (a) kind son's bed," she wrote Wednesday, Jan. 22. "Knowing his soul is already with the angels. There's just no words to describe this horrible nightmare. Please pray. Garnett's journey into the next life is nothing short of amazing."
Then there was a final posting early Jan. 23. "Garnett the great journeyed onward today at 10:20 a.m."
Staff writer Peter D. Kramer contributed to this report
In late January, Garnett was transported from Nyack Hospital to Westchester Medical Center. He died Jan. 23. Westchester County Police subsequently launched an investigation.