A mother from North Texas was given 60 years in prison on Friday after pleading guilty to giving her child poisoned Benadryl in 2022 to make it look like she had a seizure problem.
Jones, 32, from Krum, found out her sentence at a meeting in the 485th Tarrant County District Court on Friday morning. She got 60 years in prison for hurting a child seriously and 24 months in state jail for each of the three counts of leaving or endangering a child. All of these sentences will be served at the same time.
She was arrested twice this year for reportedly breaking the terms of her bond, which said she couldn’t have any contact with kids younger than 17. This led to her sentence.
Court records show that Jones asked to be put on probation when she pleaded guilty on January 10.
“I am sure that this person has a serious mental illness and wishes to be helped.” At the sentencing hearing, defense lawyer Keith McKay said, “I don’t think she’s the kind of person who needs to be locked up in a prison.”
An arrest warrant affidavit says that a man who lived with Jones told Child Protective Services that he thought Jones might have Munchausen syndrome by proxy, a disease in which a caretaker fakes symptoms in someone else.
It was asked of the judge that she spend at least four years in jail of her crime.
According to state law, someone who is charged with hurting a child seriously can get up to 99 years or life in jail.
Judge Steven Jumes of the 485th District Court said he wasn’t sure if Jones should be given probation because he thinks she has a “knack for finding situations where (she) can have access to children.”
She has not been able to have interaction with a child since July 2022 and has also lost custody of her children. The meeting to decide the sentence was moved twice. The first time was set for March 28, 2024.
Tarrant County Sheriff’s Office records show that Jones was first arrested in 2022 when she took her 4-year-old daughter to Cook Children’s Hospital in Fort Worth and said the child had been having seizures.
Investigators found that Jones took her daughter to the bathroom several times at the hospital. Doctors think that’s when she was giving the kid Benadryl.
The 4-year-old had a shaking body, big eyes, and a fast heart rate. She also couldn’t stand up straight. According to what doctors wrote in the warrant, those signs pointed to Benadryl poisoning.
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