The Mommy Blogger Who Poisoned Her Son
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Before the new age of family YouTube channels and Instagram moms, there was Lacey Spears. A young mother who was enthralled with her role as a nurturing provider, she often posted about her life with her son, Garnet Paul. To her online supporters, Lacey appeared to be nothing short of a superwoman. Garnet had a number of health issues that started as soon as he was born, causing him to undergo a procedure that would prevent him from vomiting.

In addition, he had a feeding tube inserted into him. Throughout consistent hospital stays, Lacey stayed positive, posting photos of her sick child for her MySpace and Facebook friends to see. People felt a lot of sympathy for her because of her life circumstances. Not only was Garnett constantly sick, but Lacey had also shared in a blog that his father had died in an unfortunate car wreck on the job as a police officer.

She took to social media to share with her followers the grief that she suffered after losing her fiancé and her journey as a single mother with a sick child, outlining the first year with memorial services, missed holidays, and bittersweet conversations between a curious child and their grieving mother. However, many people from Lacey's past saw a more troubling picture than what she proudly displayed on her social media pages and blog.

While these people watched Lacey perform for her online audience, they silently noted inconsistencies and odd behavior. Online, Lacey was constantly posting about Garnett's medical issues, making a separate Facebook account under the name Garnett's Journey to document it all. There was never a lack of content to post on this page, as he was seeing a doctor or visiting a hospital nearly every day.

Lacey switched providers a lot, venting her frustrations to her online platform about doctors not taking her seriously. People again felt sympathy for her, as she constantly had to advocate for her ill son. However, she also gained admiration for her devotion. It seemed that Lacey's number one priority was her son's medical issues. The doctors, however, were not concerned about Garnett's health.

but Lacey's. It wasn't until January 2014 that Garnett's medical condition began to dramatically decline. Lacey called a fellow resident in her community and told her Garnett was having seizures. The neighbor rushed over to give her access to her car. Lacey took Garnett to the hospital for these unexplained seizures, and he would eventually be stabilized. He was given a clean bill of health, and hospital staff were preparing to discharge him.

However, in a sudden turn of events, Garnet began to writhe around in his hospital bed and cry out in pain. Something was terribly wrong. Doctors made a shocking discovery. Garnet's sodium levels were much higher than what was metabolically possible, causing his brain to swell. Piecing together what had just occurred, medical staff ordered Lacey out of the room as they desperately tried to save her son.

As she sat in the waiting room in her own little digital world, she ended Garnet Paul Spears' ongoing medical saga with one final Facebook post. Garnet the Great journeyed onward today at 10.20 a.m. Lacey would later return to Garnet's side for one last photo op. As she basked in the attention from concerned and sympathetic loved ones and internet supporters, she started to receive more attention than she had bargained for.

This time, from the New York Police Department. Part 1: The Girl Who Cried Wolf Lacey Spears was born in Decatur, Alabama to her parents, Tina and Terry Spears. While Tina stayed at home with Lacey and her siblings, Rebecca and Daniel, Terry went to work as a welder. Terry and Tina were chronically ill, and they often neglected to pay attention to Lacey as they took care of themselves.

It was said that Lacey loved playing house as a child, and she always volunteered to play the role of the mother. Lacey liked to play with dolls and treated them as if they were her own real children. She took the dolls with her everywhere that she went, and sometimes she would get overprotective of them. When Lacey was seven years old, she had a violent outburst at a play date that would cause the other child's mother to keep them from seeing each other.

The friend had made the mistake of touching one of Lacey's American Girl dolls, and as a response, Lacey grabbed her friend by the throat and squeezed. Although the friend tried to brush it off when her mom arrived, there was bruising around her neck. The child's mother had felt off about the Spears family before, but this incident confirmed to her that she should keep her daughter away from them. Lacey moved on and made other friends, growing close with a girl named Jessica.

As Lacey got older, she began participating in attention-seeking behavior to fulfill the need that wasn't being met by her parents. She would tell lies to friends and the people around her in order to garner sympathy. Lacey showed up to Jessica's house one day, and when her mother answered the door, Lacey confided in her that she was being sexually abused at home by a family member. Jessica's mother ushered her inside and told Lacey that she would help her handle it.

and she recalled that Lacey instantly perked up as if she were suddenly absolved of the issue. She found it a little strange, but chalked it up to a child not being able to fully grasp the reality of the situation. Jessica's mother would call and file a report with the Department of Child Services, also known as DCS. As the investigation into the Spears family unfolded, Lacey stayed with Jessica and her family.

It wasn't long after she began staying with them that Lacey started affectionately referring to Jessica's mother as mom. She felt uncomfortable about this, but assumed that Lacey was just a kid seeking guidance in a traumatic situation. However, the DCS case was eventually closed and Lacey was cleared to return to her home. She continued to stay at Jessica's house for weeks at a time. Lacey began to branch out to new social circles, starting with a Baptist church,

Lacey would confide in others about the sexual abuse that she was experiencing. And when she reported new events, they would work with her on her spiritual healing. She once showed up to a church event in an ankle brace, limping and giving a meek smile that suggested she was suffering. When asked what happened, she said she had fainted and broken her ankle. The next day, she told the story again, but added new details. She had fainted due to her struggle with anorexia.

When she cried to her friends and told the story, one of them spoke up. They recalled her eating a giant hot dog just a day before, instantly. Lacey's tears dried as she flatly said, "That was the only thing I had eaten all week," before collapsing into her other friend and sobbing. Lacey's lies and theatrics didn't stop there. She confided in her friends that she was pregnant, knowing that she wouldn't be able to produce a baby to validate her story.

she told the friends not long after that she got an abortion. She told her friends that she had gotten the procedure done at a hospital in Alabama. However, one of Lacey's friends had a parent that worked at that hospital and she found out that they didn't perform abortions there. When this was pointed out to Lacey, she immediately changed her story, saying that she had actually traveled to Clearwater, Florida for the abortion.

Although her friends couldn't disprove this, they found it odd that she could forget what state she had her procedure done in. Lacey told her friends that she was always meant to be a mommy, just not yet. This seemed to be a turning point for Lacey as she began to hyper fixate on children and the potential of becoming a mother one day.

Lacey's first experience working with children would set the tone for the rest of her encounters with children and their parents. She volunteered at a nursery program at her church called Kids Club. She took to a child named Daniel out of the nursery and walked with him around the church grounds. Daniel's mother was furious, and Lacey's reply filled her with a sense of discomfort that she couldn't shake. Lacey insisted to Daniel's mother that she never would have hurt him

The statement waved red flags to Daniel's mother and she refused to leave her child at the nursery when Lacey was there. Despite this, she would continue to volunteer there until she got her first job at Child Care Network Daycare. She excelled at her job, eager to come in every day and going above and beyond. Because of this, she was promoted to a key holder position. Lacey would open and close the daycare every day.

Her sister urged her to date as she had never shown any interest in it. And people found that strange for a girl her age. Lacey began seeing a police officer named Drake. He was a devout Christian and because of this, he chose to remain abstinent until marriage. They went on several dates, but ultimately ended up breaking up, which prompted her to scream at Drake in public.

Despite this, Lacey stayed positive about her life and enrolled in college courses with the goal of becoming a pediatric nurse. It was in these college classes that she would cross paths with mothers that she would later take advantage of. Part two, the babysitter from hell. Lacey met Christie Burnham in elementary school, but they attended different high schools.

Lacey graduated from high school in 2005, starting college in the fall of 2006. It was in these classes that she would reunite with Kristy before she dropped out. Kristy didn't have a car, so Lacey helped her get to their classes at Calhoun Community College. Despite Kristy feeling that something wasn't right about Lacey, her mom seemed to love her. Lacey quickly became fixated on Kristy's son, 10-month-old Cameron.

She offered to babysit frequently, even for free. Christy, being a single mother, needed the assistance with childcare and had no reason to think anything negative of Lacey's intentions with her child. Things became intense as Lacey started taking on more and more responsibility with Cameron. She had her own crib and car seat for when he was with her, and she would buy him outfits, diapers, and wipes.

Christy started to notice that the 18-year-old's fascination with Cameron seemed to stem from her own desire to have children. She would have to ask Lacey to bring her child back, sometimes even telling her that they had something they had to do just so she would return him. It was beginning to feel like she was the parent and Christy was the babysitter. One day, Christy took Cameron to the park when she was approached by a stranger who smiled at her and said, "Oh, you're watching Lacey's baby."

Christy was shocked at this comment and told her that she was Cameron's mother, not Lacey. The stranger seemed confused and said they could have sworn that Cameron was Lacey's child. They apologized for the confusion and walked away, leaving Christy to feel uneasy about the interaction she just had. She later recalled that Cameron had frequent ear infections that required him to be seen by a doctor. Strangely enough, the ear infections only seemed to show up when he was in Lacey's care.

and they would get better when he was away from her. While she hadn't thought anything of it then, this would become an ongoing pattern with children that were cared for by her. Eventually, Christy had tubes put into Cameron's ears to help reduce the infection. Whenever Cameron had these issues in Lacey's care, she would call Christy to tell her about his ears and tell her about all of the steps she was taking to care for Cameron. Christy told her to bring Cameron home whenever he felt sick, but Lacey declined.

Christy began to feel more and more like Lacey was trying to take over her role as Cameron's mother. Despite her being overbearing, Christy continued to allow Lacey to watch Cameron until the spring of 2007. Lacey had kept Cameron over the weekend, and she was supposed to return him on Sunday. When Sunday rolled around, Christy was unable to make any contact with Lacey and had no idea where she had taken her son

She went to Lacey's mother's house in an attempt to find her, but she was unable to make contact. Furious, Christie demanded that she bring Cameron home immediately. Lacey was reluctant to bring him home and even acted angry. Christie told her that she would no longer be allowed to watch her son. Lacey broke down into tears, begging her not to take Cameron away from her. Disturbed by her behavior, Christie ordered her to get out of her house and threatened to beat her ass.

Christy, a mother of three, worked at a daycare that one of her children was enrolled in. One day she ran into Lacey at her daycare. When Christy saw her, she had a new little boy in the backseat of her car. His name was Jonathan, but Lacey referred to him as John John. Christy wanted to reach out and warn his mother, Autumn Hunt, but she thought that she would mind her own business instead.

Autumn was a friend of Lacey's that trusted her to watch Jonathan while she returned to work after taking maternity leave. Autumn did not have Lacey on MySpace, so she didn't see her posting photos of her son with bizarre captions about a mother's love. Lacey continued the pattern of pretending to be the mother.

She shared photos of him constantly, even kissing him on the lips. Jonathan began suffering from ear infections as well while he was in Lacey's care, and his pediatrician suggested ear tubes be put in. While she had a new child to fixate on, she decided she wanted to become a mother herself. Lacey knocked on the door of a man who lived in the same apartment complex as her. She asked him if he would come up to her apartment and assemble a crib for her.

She had taken down the crib when she stopped watching Cameron. The neighbor, named Chris Hill, agreed. He found this to be a little strange, given the fact that he hadn't interacted with Lacey much before. He said that she seemed quiet, reserved, and antisocial, and assumed that she asked him to assemble the crib because she was lonely. It wasn't long before the two began casually seeing each other and began hooking up.

Lacey succeeded in getting pregnant. And when she told Chris, he encouraged her to start looking for baby names and said that he wanted to marry her. She agreed to this at first. However, things took a complete turn. Lacey told Chris that she envisioned the name Garnett for her son. When Chris wanted to keep looking for different names, Lacey suddenly told him that the baby wasn't his after all, and she didn't want to get married. This came as a shock to Chris, who was ready to step up

but ultimately left her alone as she threatened to file a restraining order against him if he continued to contact her. Lacey carried on with her pregnancy as a single mother, not giving anyone information about the father. While she was still pregnant, she cared for Autumn Hunt's son, Jonathan. She shared photos of Jonathan kissing her belly, and when someone asked if he was her son, Lacey said yes, and that he was born on Valentine's Day.

She would encourage Autumn to go out of town to see her boyfriend as often as she could. She also began babysitting for another mother, Shauna Lynch. Lacey met Shauna through the daycare that she worked at and offered to take the children for free so that Shauna wouldn't have to send them to daycare. Shauna was initially under the impression that Jonathan was Lacey's son because of how often she brought him along to her house. But when she ran into Autumn at Lacey's apartment, she was confused.

Lacey laughed it off and explained that Jonathan wasn't her child, he was her stepsister's child. Despite this, Shauna would stay good friends with Lacey for years, becoming a pillar of emotional support. Lacey would often confide in Shauna about the sexual abuse that she claimed she experienced as a child and continued to experience as an adult.

She would often call Shauna in tears, telling her that her abuser had heard her again or that they had just left her apartment. Lacey finally revealed to Shauna that her baby was fathered by her abuser. Lacey spent a lot of time at Shauna's house, but her husband and mother-in-law felt that something wasn't right about Lacey. They found her to be intrusive, constantly showing up at the house uninvited and trying to take on the mother role. Eventually, Shauna asked Lacey to return her key to her house.

This angered her and blew up on Shauna. How dare she do such a thing when she had helped take care of the kids and for free? Shauna's husband kicked Lacey out of the house. And from that point on, Shauna would only watch her antics from afar on Facebook. On December 3rd, 2008, Garnett Paul Spears was born.

Lacey was so thrilled to be a mother and shared posts about it constantly. She posted a photo of Garnett and Jonathan together in matching outfits and photos of them first meeting. The caption read, "Big bro and little bro." Autumn was uncomfortable with her misrepresenting her relationship with Jonathan and told Lacey that she wasn't going to be babysitting him anymore.

Unbeknownst to Autumn, she had even gone as far as to take Jonathan to churches to request assistance, portraying herself as a single mom going through hard times. Lacey gave Autumn a tearful apology, but didn't try to fight for a different outcome. Instead, Lacey began to focus on her newborn son. Part 3: Mommy, I don't feel good. Just a few short days after Garnet's birth, he was in the emergency room.

Lacey had taken him in for a fever, jaundice, and an ear infection. After being seen by ER staff, Garnett was given a clean bill of health and was discharged from the hospital. Lacey was irritated by the fact that they had not done anything for her son. A few weeks later, she would come back and tell the doctors that he was sick.

She quickly learned that the doctors would not give her the sympathy and attention that she needed. But with the online support that she had, all she had to do was snap a few photos of Garnett in a hospital bed and upload them to Myspace. The prayer warriors were coming out in full swing to wrap her up in their support and care. And she became addicted. After posting a photo of Garnett at his second ER visit, Lacey was a regular at the hospital, coming in nearly every day.

Doctors noted a lot of Lacey's red flags, such as coming into the hospital and presenting the staff with a diagnosis. When hospital staff asked her about this, she would lie and say that she was either a nurse or a nursing student. Although Lacey had enrolled in nursing classes, she ended up dropping out. In January 2009, Lacey told a physician that she often thought about hurting Garnett.

This was noted and an investigation was opened with the Department of Child Services, also known as DCS. During Lacey's interview with DCS, they noted that she left Garnett in his car seat the entire time and she seemed very distant. After this initial interview, DCS was never able to make contact with Lacey, so they instead closed the case. This would be the first of many times that Garnett was failed by others in his short life.

Lacey picked up on the fact that her local hospital was getting suspicious of her and instead began to travel to a different hospital. She reported to doctors that he wasn't eating, he was dehydrated, and he was constantly projectile vomiting. He underwent a procedure to help with reflux, which would only be one of the 30 plus times that he went to the hospital in his first six weeks of life.

A doctor that had seen Garnett had already at this point put on record that he believed Lacey to suffer from Munchausen by proxy syndrome. This psychological disorder causes a person with a deeply rooted need to seek attention to impose illnesses upon a person that they are taking care of, whether this be a child or an adult. It is most commonly seen with mothers of young children and it is a horrific form of child abuse.

There had been other reports of child abuse as well. Someone else had reported seeing Lacey scream in nine-week-old Garnett's face in a Walmart parking lot. That same week, Garnett was diagnosed with failure to thrive and reflux, undergoing an invasive procedure that would not allow him to vomit anymore. Lacey reported that she was unable to get him to take his formula. While one doctor was unable to get him to take the formula provided by Lacey, a second doctor was.

After he had the formula, he became lethargic. When asked about the formula, Lacey only said that the formula was improper. The doctor then ordered a blood panel, which concerned him greatly because his sodium levels were at 180. Anything over 150 is considered dangerous and life-threatening. Garnett's brain was swelling and he suffered from a seizure. He stopped breathing, but a nurse that Lacey would later become friends with, Ginger Dabbs Anderson, revived him.

He was airlifted to another pediatric hospital and stayed in their ICU at only two months old. Lacey snapped photos and shared them online, keeping her MySpace friends in the loop about Garnett's suffering. Lacey and Garnett were separated for a few days and his condition got better and he was even eating normally. When doctors again asked Lacey what she fed Garnett with, she said that she dilutes breast milk with Pedialyte, which was recommended by his pediatrician.

Garnett, being recovered and seemingly healthy, was released into Lacey's care. Lacey continued to take Garnett to the hospital. On one occasion, he had fresh pools of blood in his ears, eyes, nose, and mouth. He was airlifted again. In September of 2009, Lacey brought Garnett into the hospital 23 times. She continued to push for a feeding tube, but doctors refused multiple times.

Eventually, another hospital inserted a feeding tube. When Ginger asked why she had opted to do this, Lacey wouldn't explain. Experts on Munchausen by proxy syndrome say that giving the abused child a feeding tube allows the caretaker to ensue medical chaos. It gives the caretaker a level of control that can be fatal. Shortly after Garnett received his feeding tube, Lacey created a Twitter account that can still be found today.

Lacey began taking Garnet to churches requesting assistance, the same way she had done with Autumn's son, Jonathan. Lacey even went as far as to forge a death certificate for a child that she never had. While many felt bad for Lacey, others knew something was wrong. Ginger and other nurses and doctors seemed to have no issues getting the little boy to eat. Ginger often hung out with Lacey outside of the hospital so she could continue to help Garnet. One time while Lacey was giving Garnet a bath,

She held him underwater and screamed at him. Ginger immediately jumped on Lacey and took Garnett for hours and drove around with him. Lacey posted about the incident on her Facebook, saying she felt so bad for running Garnett a freezing cold bath when she was mad at him. Someone on Lacey's Facebook reported this post, but nothing ever came of the report. Many people noticed that Garnett didn't actually need a feeding tube, with DCS having her on their radar and people becoming suspicious.

Lacey decided to pack up, leave Alabama, and move in with her uncle Beau and grandma Peggy in Clearwater, Florida. When Lacey moved in with her grandmother, she became friends with the neighbor that frequently came over to give hospice care to Beau. She immediately became Lacey's number one confidant. Lacey told the neighbor that she had big news. She was pregnant again.

Except it wasn't happy news, because the father of her baby was the family member that she claimed was still sexually assaulting her. To Lacey's surprise, she offered to take her to get an abortion. She agreed, but when the neighbor showed up to take her to the appointment, Lacey said that she had miscarried a few days ago. The neighbor saw how Lacey and her mother Tina interacted, and she felt bad for Lacey. Her mom seemed to treat her poorly.

The neighbor one day confronted Lacey's mom and said that Lacey was being abused and had recently miscarried. The neighbor was shocked when Lacey's grandmother told her that Lacey has issues with telling the truth. Looking for new methods of garnering attention, Lacey decided to switch to an entirely vegan and holistic lifestyle, claiming that it would cure her son of all his ailments.

She sought out groups of like-minded people to socialize herself with and grew her support team. In 2011, there was another DCS report against Lacey. Although it was dismissed as the person that made the report didn't know Lacey in real life, that year, Lacey created a new Facebook page separate from her personal one. This one titled Garnett's Journey. She didn't allow her family members access to the page because she often posted things that weren't true.

It was around this time that Lacey began to tell a new story about Garnett's father. Lacey told everyone that she had lost her fiancé, a police officer named Blake, in a work-related car accident. She posted as a grieving single mother, even creating a new blog to document her and Garnett's first year without daddy. On June 3rd, 2011, Lacey shared a post titled "Mommy, where is my daddy?"

In this post, she gives her son a poetic and heartfelt answer about where his father is, putting in child's terms that he passed on. Posts like these received a lot of praise and sympathy. She often talked about missing the love of her life and alluded to suicide, which made people concerned about her. Others, however, like Shauna, saw her posting about her dead fiancé and knew that she was lying about all of it.

Drake, the man Lacey had dated previously, had never slept with her due to his Mormon faith and had only seen her for a brief time. He is alive and well today. Florida's Department of Child Services began catching on to Lacey too, and she grew tired of dealing with them. She decided to make another move, this time to Chestnut Ridge, New York. In November of 2012, Lacey was hired at the Fellowship Community and she would receive free room and board.

Her job was to take care of the elderly folk in the community. Lacey wrote on her application that neither she nor Garnett had any medical issues. People in the community, like people anywhere else Lacey went, noticed that Garnett was a happy and healthy kid that did not need the intense medical prevention he received. Many found it odd that he had a feeding tube, as he seemed to eat food regularly.

Members of the community witnessed Lacey being rough with Garnett, snatching him up when he cried, yelling at him, and pulling him by his arm. A member of the community named Christine witnessed multiple instances of mistreatment toward Garnett and reported her multiple times, eventually leaving when nothing was done about Lacey. Garnett was a completely different child at school than what Lacey showed her internet friends. Teachers thought of him as an energetic kid and said that he ate just fine,

In fact, they had to ask Lacey to bring more of his special diet food because he would eat all of it and still be hungry. This didn't last long. In 2013, the constant hospital visits began again. During spring break, Lacey took Garnett back to Clearwater, Florida for the week. While they were there, Lacey frantically emailed his teacher saying that he was in the ICU again and likely wouldn't be back for his first day of classes and asked her to send prayers.

He did come back in January 2014, and the teachers were relieved to see him and see that he showed no signs of having suffered over break. Garnett grew more social, earning himself the nickname Mayor at Fellowship Community. Lacey realized that she was losing control over her son as he aged, so she kept him from going to school. She began sleeping with random men in an attempt to get pregnant again.

but was not successful in this. She continued to take Garnett in for different things, but hospital staff and homeopathic doctors kept telling her what she didn't want to hear. Garnett was in perfectly good shape and there was nothing wrong with him. Part four, "Garnett the Great's Journey Onward." In January of 2014, Lacey brought Garnett into the hospital for a seizure, vomiting, and explosive diarrhea, but he was showing no symptoms while he was there.

His sodium level was at 147, right under the line of danger. Garnet was discharged from the hospital and they went home. Later, Lacey invited a friend over. The friend noticed a feeding bag filled with a cloudy, milky solution and could see that Garnet was in distress. She was in shock at Lacey's calmness at the situation.

After the friend left, Lacey called her back in a panic, telling her that Garnett was having a seizure and needed to go to the hospital. The friend came over and allowed Lacey to use her car. As Lacey drove her son to the hospital, she pulled over and took a photo of him in the backseat and posted it online. Garnett had five seizures in one day. While doctors tended to Garnett, Lacey sat on her phone, updating her followers.

The medical staff began to stabilize him and were preparing to discharge him soon. At the time, Lacey quickly ran home to grab something. When she returned, the camera on the EKG caught one of the most horrific scenes imaginable. Lacey sat next to her son in the hospital bed and scrolled on her phone. Phone records would later show that she was Googling things that would suggest that she was attempting to kill Garnett with sodium poisoning. The nonchalant nature of her Google searches was bizarre.

She Googled for gluten-free bread recipes in between searches of how much sodium is fatal. After scrolling for a while, Lacey took him to the bathroom. She came out, grabbed her purse, and then went back to the bathroom. What we know now is that when she took him in the bathroom, she gave him a salt mixture through his feeding tube. Immediately after coming out of the bathroom, Garnett became violently ill.

He expelled some of it with a bowel movement and then began retching. He was unable to throw anything up due to the procedure he had at 9 weeks old. When the doctors checked his sodium levels again, they had reached 204. Once again, doctors were able to stabilize Garnett and he appeared to be stable. Lacey took him to the bathroom a second time. This time Garnett was lethargic and immediately exhibited signs of a seizure.

Lacey ran back to the bathroom and the feeding tube could be seen in her pocket. First, she snapped a photo of Garnett and posted that he went from better to worse in seconds. Then, she screamed to the doctors for help. Garnett was unable to breathe on his own and they had to sedate him. Lacey immediately left the room to call her mom. Garnett had to be airlifted by a helicopter and Lacey said she was too afraid to go.

Her friend convinced her that it was the right thing to do, and she flew with Garnett to a different hospital. Once they arrived, Lacey was questioned about the last time she had fed her son through a tube. She lied about it in front of her friend, who promptly corrected her. Lacey claimed that she had forgotten she fed him with the tube a few days prior. Garnett was put onto life support, and Lacey continued posting away on social media. When Garnett woke up, his sodium levels were dropping.

Despite him getting better, Lacey posted the opposite. She posted that he was screaming when he was actually subdued. There had been an order to not give Garnett any food or fluids as it could affect his sodium levels. As things started to calm down, medical staff were in for a shock. An abrupt code blue rang out. A code blue means cardiac or respiratory failure. When doctors arrived, Lacey was standing over her son, sobbing.

There was a water bottle underneath the hospital bed. The doctors ordered Lacey out of the room immediately and began to attend to him. His brain was swelling and his pupils weren't responding. His brain was lying flat on his skull, consistent with severe swelling. He was considered brain dead at this point. Lacey took to Facebook with this news, stating that she wasn't ready to let go yet.

The Department of Child Services was notified because it was believed that the brain death was intentional, as the sodium levels that Garnett reached were not metabolically possible. Lacey did not play the act well, describing all of his medical issues but showing little emotion and few tears.

Feeding bags, salt, and syringes were found at her apartment. Lacey contacted a fellowship member and asked them to retrieve the bag of cloudy solution from her apartment. She did, but turned it over to the police. It would later be found that there were as much as 60 packets worth of salt in the feeding bag. Lacey posted more statuses, one letting everyone know that she would be taking him off life support, and one announcing his passing.

She wrote, "Garnet the Great journeyed onward today at 10:20 a.m." Lacey followed up with a post that said, "If I mixed something up that hurt him, I didn't mean to." Lacey obtained an attorney who suggested she not speak to police. She was kicked out of the fellowship community for lying on her application and moved to Kentucky. Lacey arranged a memorial for her son and spent time googling suicide methods.

On June 15th, 2014, Lacey Spears turned herself into the police and chose not to make a statement. She was convicted by a jury in 2015 of second degree murder. She was sentenced to 20 years in prison, receiving a shorter sentence as the judge urged her to seek help for Munchausen by proxy syndrome. To this day,

Lacey claims that she does not have this disorder, despite multiple psychiatrists believing that she does. And she still defends her innocence to this day.