GUILTY WA - Robert & Michelle Staats for starving 2yo son, Moses Lake, 2012

The parents, Robert and Michelle Staats, are with their son in Spokane, Foreman said. Calls to the family's Moses Lake home produced a constant busy signal Wednesday.
"There have been no arrests, and no one has yet been charged," Foreman said.
According to a search warrant, someone from the family home called 911 on May 9 to report that a child had stopped breathing. Emergency responders arrived to find the mother giving CPR, the document said.
The search warrant said the boy had no hair or muscle tone, was bleeding from the rectum, and had a core body temperature of only 89 degrees. Normal body temperature is 98.6 degrees.
Those symptoms were consistent with long-term malnutrition, the warrant said.
The boy was taken first to a Moses Lake hospital, then airlifted 90 miles east to Providence Sacred Heart Medical Center in Spokane.

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Michelle and Robert Staats, the parents charged with criminal mistreatment of their Moses Lake baby, appeared in court Tuesday for the first time.

The judge set their arraignment for October 23rd so they could have enough time to gather funds for an attorney.

The baby remains in a long term care facility, but is no longer on life support. In court documents the prosecutor recommends that if the baby were to pass away that the parents be charged with murder.

According to the Prosecutor's report, in an interview with detectives, the father, Robert Staats, revealed a number of things. He stated that they were never out to abuse their child, but they wanted to try to do things the natural way, without medical treatment.

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Robert A. Staats, 36, and Michelle K. Staats, 32, both of Moses Lake, entered the pleas in Grant County Superior Court Tuesday. The couple are each charged with first-degree criminal mistreatment, second-degree criminal mistreatment and marijuana possession, according to court records...

The couple is accused of refusing to take their nearly 3-year-old son to a hospital for months, when the child kept spitting up most food, according to a Grant County sheriff's report. The issues with the child started in February 2011, more than a year before the child was brought to Samaritan Healthcare....

Michelle Staats allegedly told police she prayed about whether she should take the child to a hospital, according to the police report. When she thought about taking the boy to the hospital, she got an upset stomach. She allegedly interpreted the upset stomach as a sign from God she should continue trying to treat the child herself.

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Robert Staats and Michelle Staats are each charged with criminal mistreatment in the first degree and criminal mistreatment in the second degree after their nearly three-year-old son was reportedly found malnourished and having a heart attack.

The Staats' attorneys Stephen Hormel and Douglas Phelps are asking for the charges to be dismissed. They argued the Staats shouldn't be penalized for using alternative medicine, and an exception for Christian Scientists makes the law unconstitutional...

“Both naturopathic practitioners and East Asian medicine practitioners are recognized by the State of Washington as performing legitimate medical health care services,” according to the defense attorneys...

The attorneys argued state law recognizes prayer as treatment, and the law doesn't provide enough guidance to law enforcement to avoid arbitrary enforcement.

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Judge Evan Sperline says the boy starved because the parents clung to an approach that wasn't working.

The website iFIBER One News reports the boy suffered a heart attack in May 2012. He's now 4 years old and suffers from brain damage.

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"The parents' conduct withheld food from this child. He didn't get enough food," [the judge] said moments before finding the couple guilty of second-degree criminal mistreatment. He found Michelle Staats not guilty of the more serious charge of first-degree criminal mistreatment...


"During the time in his life when he should be gaining the most weight in his life, he went from 25 pounds to 10 pounds," Sperline said during his ruling.

As a result of the malnourishment, Elijah has a severe mental handicap and is no longer living with the couple...


The Staats' attorney said the couple has four other children who they raised using the same methods, and they are healthy and doing well in school...

During court, Lee said Elijah was living in western Washington at some type of medical facility and his parents tried to visit him weekly. Elijah is basically brain dead, Lee said.

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A Moses Lake couple whose malnourished 2-year-old son suffered a heart attack while they followed their belief in alternative medicine were sentenced to six months in jail.

The Grant County Superior Court judge said Tuesday that Robert and Michelle Staats could serve the sentences on home detention, and Robert Staats is eligible for work release.

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Rayemonde said:

July 2014:



http://www.komonews.com/news/local/...ed-for-starving-son-2-268276522.html?mobile=y

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