If found guilty, the couple could face up to 60 years in prison and pay up to $25,000 in restitution
About 4:02 p.m. Friday, Jerseyville police were dispatched to the Jersey Community Hospital in response to a 6-year-old boy's death.
Now police say the child in Illinois starved to death last week after his father and stepmother spent two years withholding food from him as punishment.
The boy, barred by Michael Roberts and Georgena Roberts from eating regularly since December 2015, died Friday weighing just 17 pounds, according to court documents. An autopsy's preliminary findings indicated the cause of death was "failure to thrive due to 'extreme malnourishment,'" police said. The couple, both 42, are charged with first-degree murder, as well as a felony count of child endangerment. A Jersey County judge Monday ordered the couple held in custody on $500,000 bail each.
If found guilty, the couple could face up to 60 years in prison and pay up to $25,000 in restitution, according to court documents.
The couple is also charged with a misdemeanor count of child endangerment in relation to another malnourished child, a 7-year-old. In addition to the 6-year-old who died, the couple had five other children living with them at their Jerseyville home in southern Illinois, about 50 miles north of St. Louis. The five surviving children have been taken into custody by the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services, according to a police statement. The conditions of the surviving children are unclear.
Authorities had investigated the couple previously, according to a DCFS statement obtained by the Belleville News-Democrat. A hotline call in January 2016 notified authorities that there was inadequate food at the Roberts's home. Authorities opened an investigation and then closed it after a pediatric specialist said the weight of the boy who died was the result of a medical condition.
The boy was brought to the hospital by his father, according to the Associated Press.
The criminal complaint alleges that the parents "knowingly and intentionally caused (their boy) to become extremely malnourished, leaving the said 6-year-old child. . . to starve to death." The parents additionally "knowingly withheld food and nourishment on a regular and consistent basis, such that the minor child. . . fell into a state of severe malnourishment caused by them," according to the complaint. An investigation found the parents deprived the 6-year-old and 7-year-old of food as means of punishment, according to a police statement.
The parents actions lasted two years, according to the complaint, causing the boy to weigh about a third of the normal weight of a child his age.
The couple's attorneys could not be immediately reached for comment.
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