After fabricating her son’s illnesses for a year, an Oklahoma mother was found guilty of two counts of child abuse by a jury last week. Experts testified that this was likely a case of Munchausen syndrome by proxy.
On November 17 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Oklahoma, the jury delivered its decision. According to federal prosecutors, Kasie Keys claimed for years that her 2009-born baby had problems eating and was terminally ill.
According to testimony from experts, Keys most certainly experienced Munchausen syndrome by proxy, according to NBC affiliate KFOR in Oklahoma City.
According to the National Institutes of Health, the syndrome arises when “the caretaker of a child, most typically a mother, either conjures up phoney symptoms or induces real symptoms to make it look like the child is sick.”
According to court records, Keys began informing her son’s doctors that he was having difficulties eating, using his hands, speaking, and regulating his bowels after she and the boy’s father divorced in 2012.
According to court documents, doctors started diagnosing and treating the boy despite the fact that the boy’s father did not notice those signs. Eventually, the boy was given a feeding tube.
According to court filings, the youngster was later placed on a whole parenteral nutrition regimen that calls for caretaker maintenance and comprises “liquid nutrients that are administered to the patient through the veins intravenously and bypass the stomach and intestines.”
According to court filings, Keys kept the youngster on that feeding schedule for close to four years without supplementing it with the necessary vitamins and minerals. Her son had to be hospitalized as a result, among other things, for malnourishment and hair loss.
Prosecutors claimed that she neglected his hygiene, putting him at risk of infection and keeping him in multiple diapers soaked with pee and excrement. His hospitalization was a result of bacterial infections, yeast infections, and urinary tract infections.
According to court records, Keys was charged with six counts of child abuse and two counts of child neglect by a grand jury in October 2021. To both counts, Keys entered a not-guilty plea.
The two child neglect allegations against Keys—which, according to the indictment, indicated that she failed to maintain the boy’s feeding schedule and hygiene—were acquitted by the jury, and the other four accusations of child abuse were dismissed.
According to notes from the foreperson submitted to the court, the jury struggled to reach a resolution and repeatedly asked the judge what they should do if they couldn’t agree on a course of action.
In Oklahoma, child abuse carries a maximum sentence of life in prison.
Keys’ sentencing information wasn’t readily accessible.
