Mom Who Didn't Give Her Son Prescribed Chemo Meds Is Convicted of Attempted Murder
A Massachusetts woman who did not administer prescribed chemotherapy medications to her son, who had cancer, was convicted of attempted murder, child endangerment and assault today, by a Lawrence Superior Court jury.
Jeremy Fraser, who was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma in 2006, died in 2009. He was 9, and also had autism. According to the Associated Press, prosecutors argued that his mother, Kristen LaBrie, was resentful of being a single parent. Alternatively, LaBrie told the jury that she stopped given her child the medicine because she couldn’t handle seeing the side effects it gave him.
LaBrie was first charged with child endangerment in 2008, before her son died.
The child’s oncologist, Dr. Alison Friedmann, testified that she told LaBrie her son’s cancer had a cure rate of 85 percent to 90 percent, with a two-year, five-phase treatment plan that included at-home administration of several cancer medicines. Friedmann testified that the child’s cancer went into remission after months of treatment but returned in 2008 in the form of leukemia. She also told the jury that LaBrie had not filled least five months of prescriptions for her son.
