Oklahoma mother who forced her severely malnourished children to eat dog feces won't spend time behind bars
An Oklahoma woman who allegedly made her children eat dog feces is will not spend any time behind bars.
Mary Elizabeth Moore, 34, of Miami, Oklahoma, pleaded no contest to two counts of child neglect involving two children and received a seven-year suspended sentence, according to Tulsa World.
Moore was arrested after the two children, aged five and three, were hospitalized for severe malnutrition.
When the 34-year-old was taken into custody, the five-year-old girl, as well as her younger sibling were admitted in Saint Francis Hospital's intensive care unit in Tulsa. An examination found that the older child weighed just 26 pounds, while the younger one just 18.
"DHS records indicate a long withstanding history of failure to thrive cases brought up against Mary (Moore),” an arrest affidavit filed in connection to the case reads.
Moore was also accused of refusing to take them to a hospital for treatment and showing resistance to taking the medical staff's advice.
The affidavit also mentions her boyfriend and accuses him of sometimes "throwing bottles" at the younger child and graphically details her eldest child describing to investigators the abuse that had been inflicted on her.
When a Department of Human Services worker asked her about her diet, she said she was made to eat dog feces. The arresting officer noted in the affidavit that this was the reason they found parasitic pinworms in the child.
It was also stated in the affidavit that the three-year-old had been diagnosed as "failure to thrive as early as four months old" and that both children's failure to thrive is "due to protein-calorie malnutrition, not being provided enough calories."
Doctors said the children were "severely malnourished" and had "developed re-feeding syndrome before beginning to gain weight." To treat the children's malnourished state, the hospital had to reportedly place them on a "special diet and applied nasal feeding tubes."
Both children have since been placed in state custody.
Court records indicate that Moore entered the plea on Friday, August 23. Besides the seven-year suspended sentence, she was ordered to not have any contact with her children unless it is within the guidelines of the guardianship case.
Her defense attorney, Ken Gallon, said this past Monday, August 26, that his client did not admit to wrongdoing but still decided to accept a plea deal from prosecutors.