Vegan Couple Sentenced To Life For Killing Baby

Vegan Couple Sentenced To Life For Killing Baby

www.msnbc.msn.com

A vegan couple were sentenced Wednesday to life in prison for the death of their malnourished 6-week-old baby boy, who was fed a diet largely consisting of soy milk and apple juice.

Superior Court Judge L.A. McConnell imposed the mandatory sentences on Jade Sanders, 27, and Lamont Thomas, 31. Their son, Crown Shakur, weighed just 3 1/2 pounds when he died of starvation on April 25, 2004.

The couple were found guilty May 2 of malice murder, felony murder, involuntary manslaughter and cruelty to children. A jury deliberated about seven hours before returning the guilty verdicts.

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Horrendous. Simply horrendous. I admire and respect those who have the will to be Vegan. I couldn't if I tried. The fact remains though that a baby died of starvation. The poor child weighed only 3-1/2 pounds. As a parent, how could you have missed that?

www.msnbc.msn.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

personal dogma's often blind people of the reality around them. This is just sad, i dont have a kid ( i know you do) so i can only imagine what these parents are feeling.

I just cant believe they werent able to tell that their specific dietary plan wasnt working for their kid.

most of the time people are mislead and biased tward vegan living.
i have two brothers that are vegan and my sister and i are vegitarians ..
i know it is hard to be vegan and do it right when you are "grown up".
the only thing i can think is that they did things a bit wrong to say the
least .. if it is your first child and you dont have anything base to start
from i can see how some things could of been missed .. i just wonder if
they had a doctor checking up on the kid or not .. i think that is one of
the bigest things you can do if you choose this type of life style for your
childern.

Good question. I wonder if they did have a doctor for immunizations if nothing else? This is purely an assumption, but I have to assume that the baby was born at a weight equal to, or more than likely greater than the 3-1/2 pounds he was when he died. Surely there had to have been some warning signs. I truly do not believe that there were no outward signs that something was wrong.

This is disgusting. I hope they enjoy every single year they are in prison, they deserve each of them.

This was a complete failure of parenting IMO. I'm not vegan or vegitarian, but it seem to me that's a pretty huge lifestyle choice, and one that should be made by the individual. Not forced on a baby. BUT. If you did want to raise your child that way, you should be smart enough to take the proper precautions. There's no way they could have thought their son going that far down in weight was normal. I refuse to belive that having a 7 month old daughter myself.

This is simply inexcusable.

not having all the information on the case and how things played out in cort we cant really say much other than this is a awful thing ..

if we had doctore reports before death and autopsy info it would make it
a alot easyer to gage what happend. at the most i think they should be
charge with neglet , if they didnt have a doctor ..

there are a few conditions that mimick malnutrition and some that block
the system from getting the proper ammounts of nutritional substences ..
the kid could of had a problem with digestion ..

A baby needs its mother's breast milk, just a fact of life.

Whether or not the child would have continued to be vegan/vegetarian later in life is a different story.

However, it needed milk and they simply did not give it...

While I do not think they should go to jail for murder, they should have some repercussions. You would think they'd notice if the baby was not getting any bigger after taking it home from the hospital? I would hope anyway...

I wish they were more informed on how to treat a baby at such a young age.

Clearly we are not meant to be vegan until we are big enough and can eat necessary protein.


What really bothers me is that they didn't give the child breast milk. They would not have been using any animal products to do this. The woman would have merely had to eat a little more protein (beans) to feed this poor child.


They will go to jail and who will benefit? Lawyers and private jails...

The baby will not have any justice done on its behalf. Sad sad story.

I don't think their intentions were to kill their baby, just raise it where it wouldn't have to rely on any animal products to survive. There is no harm in using her own milk, as opposed to bovine milk, so I don't understand why the mother wouldn't feed the baby her own breast milk.

Originally posted by DJMessiah
I don't think their intentions were to kill their baby, just raise it where it wouldn't have to rely on any animal products to survive. There is no harm in using her own milk, as opposed to bovine milk, so I don't understand why the mother wouldn't feed the baby her own breast milk.

Yes I am still confused why she would not feed the baby her own milk.


This would not technically make it "vegan" from birth (possible reasoning) but of course would keep it alive...Probably a little more important if you ask me.

Originally posted by biggie smalls

Originally posted by DJMessiah
I don't think their intentions were to kill their baby, just raise it where it wouldn't have to rely on any animal products to survive. There is no harm in using her own milk, as opposed to bovine milk, so I don't understand why the mother wouldn't feed the baby her own breast milk.

Yes I am still confused why she would not feed the baby her own milk.


This would not technically make it "vegan" from birth (possible reasoning) but of course would keep it alive...Probably a little more important if you ask me.

You are assuming that she can produce breast milk. Either way, they are either too stupid or apathetic to be allowed to walk freely in society. Don't pick up the soap. Bye Bye Babykillers.

[edit on 9-5-2007 by Dissension]

As has been said on another thread recently, when you take on parenthood you take on a level of responsibility that transcends everything else.

Your life is no longer your own and there are no half measures in the dedication you show to your children, that is, after all, what we are here for. What motivated these parents to risk, and ultimately destroy, their child's life for the sake of there own selfish beliefs utterly defeats me.

I am hesitant to cast stones without having all of the facts but I fear that they killed their child just as surely as if they had strangled it at birth.

I watched something about this case on CNN a week or so ago.

This really was'nt completely there fault, and a Vegan diet actually is'nt bad for the baby,
what was wrong is that they could'nt get a nutritionist to talk to them, there insurance
would'nt pay for it, and they did'nt haver the money to go to one

They basically were trying there best, with no one to ask questions to.


I don't think they should be in trouble what-so-ever, like I said, they were trying to be good parents, but they could'nt afford to talk to a professional about what exactly the diet should
consist of.

[edit on 5/9/2007 by iori_komei]

This is not a case of the family's vegan values harming the child..but one of irresponsibility.Babies don't need BREAST MILK.I was given soy milk (apparently breast feeding was too painful for my mom and i didn't like real formula) so..Last I checked SOY MILK is a perfectly acceptable drink that follows vegan values and does NOT kill a child. The problems comes with how often they fed the baby not what..I saw a case like this on Law and Order..(turns out the midwife was crazy and told the mother that breast feeding could kill it.....) Any normal PERSON (parent or not) would take there child to they hospital as soon as they realized the baby was either not eating or gaining weight (esp. if they were losing weight) I dont know whether they meant to kill the baby, didnt care or think about it. or if this is just a case of two stupid human beings. Either way..the fact that they were vegan..I dont think is a big part of why this baby is dead.

---> Also babies cant drink apple juice...Soy milk should have been sufficient if given enough

Veganism is a wholly unnatural dietary philosophy based on the false premise that plant life doesn't have awareness or consciousness. I'll back this statement with the seminal work on plant consciousness, The Secret Life of Plants by Peter Tompkins and Christopher Bird. Humans became what they are today because we are ominvores. It's they way nature engineered us. To ignore or tamper with that engineering is tantamount to slow suicide or in this case: infanticide.

Here's a link:

en.wikipedia.org...

^^what??...first you say plants have a conscious so vegetarianism is unnatural then you pretty much say (not that we need to stop eating plants)..but we need to be omnivores because otherwise it is unnatural...I'm confused../I mean i don't understand how someone can be a vegan but..its not tantamount to suicide....IMO

Either way like i said before this baby didn't die due to WHAT the diet was (well the juice was wrong) but more so how OFTEN it was fed.

Originally posted by Dissension
You are assuming that she can produce breast milk.

Why wouldn't she? Women can go to the doctor to get breast pumps that will help stimulate their breasts enough to produce milk. There are also agencies out there who donate milk to mothers who can't produce their own. There are many options at their disposal, if the mother couldn't make her own milk.

She also had the option of asking doctors if it's safe for the baby to survive on soy milk and apple juice, and yet they didn't do that as well.

[edit on 9-5-2007 by DJMessiah]

NO EXCUSE! NONE! There is not one thing ANYONE can say that justifies any of this unless it was an actual medical condition that killed this poor child. If you wanna live your little veggy life so be it but holy sh1t people...wait till the kid is a healthy 2-3 yearls old THEN start to show him the way you would LIKE him to eat. It amazes me how people try to EXCUSE everything they do or how others will make excuses for them...and you really wonder why people continue to do some REALLY dumb stuff...

To become so focused on one thing, no matter what that thing is, that you let your own child starve to death so you can live a politicaly correct lifestyle is criminal. I hope they never breathe free air again. You may have the right to live the way you want to but you dont have the right to harm others while doing it.

Anybody sticking up for these morons should seriously reevaluate their belief system.

eh honestly i don't feel bad for them. The parents could have totally looked up and researched on how to raise a baby vegan ..im sure theres a lot of info out there on how to do it properly.
im not vegan or vegetarian. but i dont dig read meat. anyway i personally wouldnt raise my child like that.dont they NEED certain amounts of dairy and all that jazz? anyway like i said i don't feel bad for them at all.
i think they are dumb ass parents. haha booo to them