Woman starved, withheld medical care from partner’s ‘frail’ child, Oregon officials say
A woman accused of starving and withholding medical attention from her partner’s young child for more than a year has been convicted, prosecutors in Oregon said.
The woman, who McClatchy News is not naming in order to protect the child’s identity, was found guilty in connection with two counts of first-degree criminal mistreatment after a jury trial, the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office said in a March 11 news release.
She’s scheduled to be sentenced March 28.
Her attorney told McClatchy News in a March 12 email that “it is important to note that (the woman) was also acquitted by the same jury of her peers on three similar counts of criminal mistreatment” and she “will be appealing the two counts that were convictions.”
The woman “maintains her innocence,” the attorney said.
The mistreatment happened between April 2018 and November 2019, when the child was 7 to 8 years old, prosecutors said.
A few years earlier, when the child was 4, he “suffered an unexplained brain injury while in (the woman’s) care,” per the release.
He spent weeks in the hospital and left with a G-tube, or a feeding tube inserted in the stomach, prosecutors said.
He weighed about 45 pounds “and was in the 85th percentile for weight at that time,” according to prosecutors.
But the child “failed to thrive while in (the woman’s) care and lost a significant amount of weight over the next few years,” prosecutors said.
The woman said the child wouldn’t eat by mouth but insisted she was feeding him enough through the G-tube, per the release.
By April 2018, he’d dropped to “the 13th percentile for weight,” prosecutors said.
The woman “failed to make a follow-up appointment with the” child’s dietitian, “and she canceled or failed to show for a large number of the victim’s medical appointments over the ensuing eighteen months,” according to prosecutors.
In October 2019, she “finally brought” the child to the dietitian, who worked to ensure he’d be hospitalized, prosecutors said. He was “extremely thin and frail,” though the woman said she was giving him “200% of his expected caloric needs,” per the release.
He was under 40 pounds when he entered the hospital, prosecutors said.
The child started eating food by mouth in the hospital when the woman wasn’t in the room, prosecutors said. She eventually was banned from the facility, and the child gained weight and showed he didn’t need the feeding tube to get enough food, per the release.
During the four-plus years he was cared for by the woman, he lost more than 10% of his body weight, according to prosecutors.
Multnomah County includes Portland.
This story was originally published March 12, 2025 at 1:06 PM.
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