By Julie Manganis
Staff writer
—
SALEM — Kristen LaBrie was sent to prison for eight to 10 years yesterday by a judge who called her crimes "an extended, secretive and calculated act that chills the soul."
"As difficult as it is for us to understand," Lawrence Superior Court Judge Richard Welch III said, "she had the specific intent to kill her young son and intentionally withheld potentially life-saving medication from him in order to accomplish her goal of murder."
LaBrie, 38, of Salem, was convicted Tuesday of four charges, including attempted murder, assault and battery on a disabled person and a child, and child endangerment, charges arising from her failure to provide her autistic son, Jeremy Fraser, with the at-home chemotherapy that doctors say would have cured his non-Hodgkins lymphoma.
Instead, the cancer came out of remission and returned as a more deadly form of leukemia. Jeremy died in March of 2009 at the age of 9.
After she completes her prison term, LaBrie will be on probation for five years, with conditions that include anger management counseling.
Throughout her week-long trial, LaBrie, who offered various explanations for her failure to give Jeremy his medication, showed virtually no emotion. But yesterday, a haggard-looking LaBrie, dressed in a loose gray sweatshirt, her hair pulled back in a ponytail, sobbed in court.
"I am remorseful for my actions, and I wish I could have done things differently," LaBrie told the judge. "I wish I would have sought out avenues to help me when I was left alone with his care. If I could do it differently, I would. I certainly miss my son every day, and I think about him every day and I wish he could be here with me."
LaBrie's lawyer had sought to portray her as an overwhelmed, depressed single mother, concerned about the effects of chemotherapy on her boy.
While expressing sympathy for the challenges of caring for a sick, disabled child, prosecutor Kate MacDougall went on to tell Welch, "At the end of the day, this is just child abuse."
'Utterly vulnerable'
"This defendant made an intentional decision to harm Jeremy," said the prosecutor, who was seeking a 15- to 17-year state prison term.
"She withheld from this child, intentionally, his chance for a cure," said MacDougall.
"Jeremy was a child who could not speak for himself," said the prosecutor. "He was utterly vulnerable. There was a relationship of sacred trust that was betrayed by this defendant the relationship between a mother and a child."
Both MacDougall and the judge pointed out that it wasn't a decision made after many months of grueling treatments — LaBrie had failed to give Jeremy his at-home medications just a month after he was first diagnosed, in 2006.
"This occurred over many months," MacDougall reminded the judge. "It's very important to understand, as the jury did, that this did not begin in maintenance."
The judge offered a similar assessment, saying LaBrie intended to "intentionally subvert" her son's chances.
"She allowed her son to suffer the misery of inpatient chemotherapy, but refused to do her part and administer the relatively less painful at-home medications," Welch said in his sentencing memorandum.
Nor was this a situation where the risks outweighed the benefits, given Jeremy's 85 to 90 percent chance for a full recovery, or where LaBrie held religious beliefs that prevented her from providing medical care, the judge noted.
"In the last analysis, our society is judged on how we protect its most vulnerable members, children and the disabled," the judge said. Jeremy was "one of society's weakest and most beleaguered."
"This was a tragic and difficult case," said Essex District Attorney Jonathan Blodgett in a prepared statement. "For the commonwealth this prosecution was always about justice for Jeremy."
Meanwhile, both MacDougall and Jeremy's paternal uncle, Andrew Fraser, defended the role of Jeremy's father, Eric Fraser, who was killed in a motorcycle crash in 2009, after LaBrie had "vilified" him in her testimony.
After being awarded custody of Jeremy, "Eric Fraser rose to the occasion," said MacDougall, "making sure the last year of Jeremy's life was as normal and joyful and carefree as it could possibly be."
"No father was closer to his son, and no father tried to do more for his son," Andrew Fraser said in a victim-impact statement.
'Not a monster'
Welch said he had read all of the dozens of letters of support that defense lawyer Kevin James submitted prior to the sentencing hearing.
One letter he described as very helpful came from LaBrie's older son, a teenager now, who had been removed from her care by the Department of Social Services when he was a child.
LaBrie, apparently not expecting that letter from her older child, burst into sobs as the judge referred to it.
Matthew Haight, now 18, wrote that LaBrie "was nothing but unbelievably loving, caring and completely devoted" to Jeremy. He does not believe his mother wanted to kill his younger half-brother.
"I know my mother and I love her, no matter what, and my parting with her was not nearly as bad as anybody makes it seem," he wrote.
LaBrie's mother, Simone Cobb, also wrote a letter telling Welch, "She is not the monster everyone have made her out to be."
After asking for another delay in sentencing, LaBrie's lawyer, Kevin James, sought just a year in jail for his client, urging the judge to "compartmentalize" Jeremy's death from the failures of his client to give him his medications, what he called "the period of noncompliance."
Outside court, James was asked by reporters what he thought of the sentence. He replied by lashing out at the press.
"You guys are unable to take anything responsibly," James told reporters. Asked if the sentence was reasonable, he insisted that wasn't the issue.
"What's at issue is, ladies and gentlemen, the letters of support that have been directed at my office," he said, then went on to give out his email address.
James filed a motion seeking a stay of the sentence pending an appeal, which Welch denied without a hearing. James also filed a notice of an appeal, a formal request to withdraw from the case and a request that LaBrie be appointed a new lawyer from the public defender's office.
Andrew Fraser said he was satisfied with the sentence handed down by Welch.
"I had a number in my mind of nine, one year for every year of Jeremy's life," said Fraser, who went on to praise the prosecutors, MacDougall and Lisa Core, and the investigators on the case. "I think everyone did a great job."
His sister, Lori Thomas, who is Jeremy's aunt, agreed, calling the term "appropriate."
Asked what he thought of the judge's comment that the crime chilled the soul, Fraser said, "We've all had that chill for three years."
Courts reporter Julie Manganis may be reached at 978-338-2521 or at jmanganis@salemnews.com.
