A vegan woman convicted of murder in the malnutrition death of her young son was sentenced on Monday to life in prison.
Sheila O’Leary, 39, whose family followed a strict vegan diet, was convicted in June on six charges – first-degree murder, aggravated child abuse, aggravated manslaughter, child abuse and two counts of child neglect – in the death of Ezra O’Leary.
Her sentencing in Lee County, Florida, had previously been postponed four times. She showed no emotion as the sentence was read out, and told the judge she did not wish to make a statement.
Her husband, Ryan Patrick O’Leary, remains in jail while awaiting trial on the same charges.
Sheila O’Leary is seen in court on Monday for her sentencing in Fort Myers, Florida
Mother-of-four Sheila Leary is shown above. Her 18-month-old son Ezra died of complications caused by malnutrition in September 2019
Investigators said the couple, who lived in Cape Coral, told them the family ate only raw fruits and vegetables, although the toddler also was fed breast milk.
The 18-month-old boy weighed 17 pounds and was the size of a seven-month-old baby when he died in September 2019, a police report said.
The couple had two other children, ages 3 and 5, who also were malnourished, investigators said.
Amira Fox, the state attorney, said the two endured ‘extreme neglect’.
A fourth child had been returned to her biological father during an earlier malnutrition case in Virginia, court records show.
Doctors found Ezra had not been fed for a week by the time he died.
Sheila and Ryan, who has also been charged with murder and is waiting trial, called 911 after Ezra stopped breathing.
Sheila O’Leary, 39, was convicted of a jury in Cape Coral, Florida, in June after a week-long trial
Sheila and her 30-year-old husband Ryan were both charged with murder after the 18-month-old’s death. They admitted to police that they should have called 911 when Ezra started struggling to breathe back in 2019, but that they went to sleep instead
Paramedics pronounced the toddler dead at the scene. They also examined the couple’s older three children.
The pair were charged in December 2019 after Ezra’s cause of death was revealed.
No photographs have ever been released showing what state the child was in when he died.
But prosecutors at Sheila’s trial described an emaciated child who constantly cried.
‘She chose to disregard his cries. She didn’t need a scale to see his bones.
‘She didn’t need a scale to hear his cry,’ said Sara Miller, Assistant State Attorney.
The family home in Cape Coral, Florida, where the three kids lived with their parents. The other children were taken into the custody of child services
The court heard how Sheila mainly fed the children mangoes, bananas and avocados. Ezra was also fed breast milk. She is seen being arraigned on December 23, 2019
The couple also had a three-year-old and a five-year-old who were severely malnourished.
Their skin was yellow and one suffered such poor dental hygiene that their teeth were black.
Sheila also has an 11-year-old daughter from a previous relationship and her health was considerably better than that of the other children, due to her spending time with her father in Virginia and eating a proper diet.
The three children were fed a diet by their mother that consisted mostly of mangoes, bananas, avocados and rambutans.
It’s unclear if they ever saw a doctor.
Ezra was born at home and had never been to a physician.
According to police, on the day he died, the toddler had been nursing when he started struggling to breathe.
Instead of calling for help, his parents say they went to sleep.
By the time they woke up, he had stopped breathing entirely.
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