Guilty Verdict Stands for Vegans Who Starved Baby

In April 2004, the 6-week-old son of Jade Sanders and Lamont Thomas starved to death, and Georgia’s top court today upheld the couple’s murder convictions and life sentences from 2007. A court initially found the first-time parents guilty of murder after investigators discovered they fed the boy mostly soy milk and apple juice in an attempt to adhere to a vegan lifestyle, the AP reports.

Sanders and Thomas did not take him to the doctor even as he grew weak and emaciated, prosecutors argued during the trial, but they did rush him to the hospital when he started having trouble breathing. It was too late, however, and doctors declared the baby dead on arrival due to extreme malnourishment. Both appealed, but the Georgia Supreme Court unanimously rejected those appeals, with the justices concluding that there was sufficient evidence to support the guilty verdict. Among the evidence: Cops who had searched the pair's apartment found a soy milk bottle, an apple juice bottle, and a rancid-smelling baby bottle caked with debris. (More vegan stories.)