A 22-year-old Dallas woman has been sentenced to life in prison for the starvation death of her seven-month-old son in 2014.
Princess White had pleaded guilty to a charge of injury to a child for the December 2014 death of Kary Sharpe.
According to court records, the infant was found unconscious by his biological grandmother. The child later died at the hospital.
“It was horrific,” said child abuse prosecutor Eren Price. “The detective described being able to see every bone in his body through his skin. He had no muscle tone.”
White told detectives that the baby was born at a local hospital in April 2014 and weighed six pounds. She said the baby had been diagnosed as lactose intolerant and that she had been repeatedly instructed to change his formula.
She told police that she had taken the child to all of his check-up appointments, including his two-month checkup and his six-month checkup. However, hospital records showed that the child wasn’t taken in for his six-month appointment.
Hospital records showed that she brought the child into the emergency room in July 2014, stating the infant had not taken a bottle since the day prior and would sometimes throw up after taking a bottle. The child weighed nine pounds, three ounces at the time.
She left before the child could be evaluated by a doctor.
At the time of his death, the baby weighed only seven pounds – just a few ounces more than what he weighed at birth.
Investigators found cans of milk-based formula, but no cans of soy-based formula, during a search of her apartment.
White, who had two other children, testified that raising three children was a struggle for her to work and pay the bills. Prosecutors pointed out that White had supportive extended family who would have helped her if only she had asked.
She had an open CPS case, but did not participate in the services she was offered. White also failed to take the infant to the WIC office so he could be examined in November 2014. When she missed the appointed, she lost her WIC benefits.
“She could have taken advantage of support but she didn’t and she lied when confronted about it,” Price said. “I argued her lies showed us that the starvation was intentional. She knew what she was doing and it was not mistake at all.”
In sentencing White, District Judge Theresa Hawthorne told her that she was sickened by the way that she had allowed her own child to suffer. Hawthorne also chastised several of White’s relatives, including White’s mother, who were living in the apartment, for doing nothing to stop the child from starving to death.
