Mother in Dallas (USA) sentenced to six years in prison for faking son’s illnesses

A judge sentenced Kaylene Bowen-Wright, 36, to six years in prison Friday, after she pleaded guilty to injury to a child causing serious bodily injury. Bowen-Wright admitted to subjecting her son to several unnecessary surgeries.

For years, Ryan Crawford tried to convince judges that his son Christopher was healthy, despite the child’s mother’s claims that he was ill. On Friday, Crawford was finally vindicated.

A judge sentenced the boy’s mother, Kaylene Bowen-Wright, to six years in prison, months after she admitted having lied about illnesses she’d said the 10-year-old suffered from for the majority of his life.

Bowen-Wright, 36, previously pleaded guilty to injury to a child causing serious bodily injury after confessing to subjecting the child, Christopher Bowen, to multiple unneeded surgeries throughout his life.

Police arrested Bowen-Wright in late 2017 after medical professionals noticed signs of medical child abuse and made a complaint to Child Protective Services.

Officials removed the mother’s three children from her home, including Christopher, who has been in his father’s custody ever since.

Christopher underwent 13 major surgeries and had 323 visits to the doctor during the course of the abuse, according to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

The doctor visits began when Christopher was an infant, his father testified in front of Judge Ernest White on Friday. At first, Bowen-Wright said Christopher — who was born prematurely — had an issue drinking milk. The alleged illnesses evolved into more serious conditions over time as the mother isolated Crawford from his son, the father said.

“[She would] just always say that something’s wrong with Christopher all the time,” Crawford testified. “It was just one thing after another.”

Prosecutors showed multiple Facebook messages from Bowen-Wright in which she claimed Christopher had cancer or wasn’t expected to live past the age of 4 or 5. She claimed on multiple occasions that doctors said her son had only a few months to live, prosecutors said.

The mother even started multiple GoFundMe campaigns for her son, and had trips sponsored by the Make-A-Wish Foundation. He lived with a feeding tube for the majority of his life, and spent portions of his life in a wheelchair.

He was a healthy child the entire time.

Attorneys suggested Bowen-Wright suffers from Munchausen syndrome by proxy, a disorder in which a caretaker creates and exaggerates fake illnesses for a person in their care. It usually affects a mother and leads to the abuse of a child, Dr. Catherine Ayoub, a medical expert, testified Friday.

Heath Hyde, Bowen-Wright’s attorney, asked the judge to sentence his client to probation, arguing that therapy is the preferred solution over jail time.

Source: Dallasnews