Lacey Spears kept on suicide watch in Westchester jail
A day after surrendering, Lacey Spears is on suicide watch at Westchester County jail, alone and confined to a spare cinderblock cell with no access to the Internet or any personal effects such as pictures of the 5-year-old son she's accused of killing.
Wearing an orange jumpsuit, the 26-year-old's shoes have no laces and she's being watched around the clock by a female guard outside her cell in the mental health unit, which holds a half-dozen fellow inmates. Spears also is being monitored by the jail's mental health director, a psychologist, but so far no psychiatric evaluation has been ordered, even as prosecutors think she may have Munchausen by proxy, a rare disorder where a parent sickens a child to gain attention.
Her lawyer was her only outside visitor as of late afternoon Wednesday. She's spent her time alone, forced to eat meals in her cell and allowed out for only an hour a day to visit the "day room" where she can watch television or the jail yard to get fresh air.
"She's been calm and cooperative," warden Leandro Diaz said, noting the suicide watch is based not on any specific actions, but on the notoriety of the case.
The former Chestnut Ridge resident, accompanied by her father who traveled with her from Kentucky, where she'd been staying in recent months, turned herself in Tuesday after she was indicted on second-degree murder and first-degree manslaughter charges in her son Garnett's Jan. 23 death. Authorities suspect she poisoned him with salt through a feeding tube connected to the boy's abdomen before he entered Nyack Hospital on Jan. 17, and again Jan. 19 at Nyack.
The arrest prompted strong emotions among those who knew Spears and her son. At The Fellowship Community in Chestnut Ridge, where Spears lived with Garnett at the time of his death, administrator Matt Uppenbrink said Wednesday, "We hope that there will be a swift resolution to these proceedings and that our young friend Garnett Spears is remembered with the same love he so freely gave to all of us in life."
At the arraignment Tuesday in Westchester County Court, prosecutors revealed that on Jan. 18, video showed Garnett was "playful, healthy and acting normally." Video showed Lacey Spears continuously taking him into the bathroom with the connector tube and a cup with liquid and he would emerge retching, prosecutors said.
On Jan. 19, Garnett's sodium level spiked without medical explanation to 182 milliequivalents per liter from a normal level of 144. He was airlifted with his mother to Maria Fareri Children's Hospital in Valhalla that night. It was on Jan. 22, after the first of two clinical brain-death exams showed no activity, that Spears called her neighbor, told her to go to her house and get rid of a bag she used to feed Garnett through his tube. It was one of two bags police seized, both containing extreme levels of sodium, they said.
At the hearing, Spears' lawyer David Sachs called it a case built entirely on circumstantial evidence. He argued for bail to be no higher than $150,000, saying her parents were of limited means – her mother is on disability and her father is a $44,000-a-year structural steel welder.
Spears appeared solemn as she stood in handcuffs, wearing a heavy black cardigan despite the 80-degree day. It was a stark departure from one of the last photos she posted to Facebook with Garnett: There she was laughing as the boy made a silly face for the camera. In court, her face was ashen, she had let her hair grow out and was noticeably heavier.
Judge Barry Warhit sided with prosecutors in ordering her to jail with no bail, with a return court date of July 2. That date has since been changed to July 16.
Staff writer Jon Bandler contributed to this report.
About 'Losing Garnett the Great'
Read our five-part series, "Losing Garnett the Great," a Journal News report that follows the life of Lacey Spears from Alabama to Florida to Rockland's Fellowship Community where her well-documented devotion to Garnett ends in his unexplained death. We explore how a woman whose existence centered on her only child became the focus of a police probe into whether her son was poisoned. To see past stories in the series, go to lohud.com.
Part 1: Boy's death reveals mom's lies
A little blond boy beams in dozens of photos on Lacey Spears' MySpace page with captions like "My World My Everything" and "He Completes Me." There's just one problem with this maternal picture: It isn't true. That boy is not her son.
Part 2: Two fathers; one real, one imagined
When Chris Hill heard from a friend that Garnett was dying, he reached out to Lacey Spears in the only way he knew how: He sent her a Facebook friend request. It's a strange way for a father to seek news about his son.
Part 3: Red flags, in and out of the hospital
Some people in Lacey Spears' life described her as a caring and nurturing mother but others saw darker signs. Were the surgeries, IVs and feeding tube really necessary? Lacey Spears has denied doing anything to harm her son. (Audio: Ex-nurse recalls Lacey as "the biggest liar I ever met.")
It was a brief idyll for a happy child. Lacey Spears and son Garnett move to Florida, but the happier times didn't last. Just before Superstorm Sandy, mother and son moved north to Chestnut Ridge and the Sunbridge Institute, known as the Fellowship.
Part 5: 'Garnett the Great journeyed onward'
Lacey Spears and her son Garnett settle in to life at the Fellowship, where Lacey spoke frequently about her sickly son's medical history. Garnett seemed like a normal, healthy boy to many in the Chestnut Ridge enclave. In late January, Garnett was transported from Nyack Hospital to Westchester Medical Center. He died Jan. 23. Westchester County Police subsequently launched an investigation.