A mother from North Texas was sentenced to 60 years in jail on Friday after pleading guilty to poisoning her toddler with Benadryl in 2022 to fake a seizure problem.
Jesika Lynn Jones, 32, of Krum, received her sentence Friday morning during a hearing in the 485th Tarrant County District Court. She was sentenced to 60 years in prison on a charge of injury to a child resulting in serious physical injury, as well as 24 months in a state jail for each of the three counts of abandoning or endangering a child, to be served concurrently.
Her sentencing comes after she was arrested twice this year for allegedly breaking the terms of her bond, which barred her from having contact with minors under the age of 17.
Jones wanted probation after she pled guilty on January 10, according to court filings.
“I believe this person suffers from a major mental disorder and should be addressed. At the sentencing hearing, defense attorney Keith McKay stated, “I do not believe she is a person who should be locked up in a penitentiary.”
According to an arrest warrant document, a man who resided with Jones expressed concerns to Child Protective Services about probable Munchausen syndrome by proxy, a disease in which a caretaker fakes symptoms in someone else.
Prosecutors asked the judge to sentence her to no less than four years in jail.
According to state law, a charge of child injury causing serious bodily harm can result in up to 99 years or life in prison.
Judge Steven Jumes of the 485th District Court stated that he was unsure if Jones should be granted probation since he feels she has a “knack for finding situations where (she) can have access to children.”
Since July 2022, she has been forbidden from having contact with a child and has lost custody of her children. The sentencing hearing was postponed twice, with the first hearing initially planned for March 28, 2024.
Jones was first arrested in 2022, when she took her then-4-year-old daughter to Cook Children’s Hospital in Fort Worth, claiming she was having seizures, according to a Tarrant County Sheriff’s Office warrant.
Jones brought her kid to the restroom numerous times in the hospital, which physicians suspected was when she was giving the child Benadryl.
The 4-year-old had bodily tremors, dilated pupils, an accelerated heart rate, and was unable to stand on her own. According to doctors’ statements in the warrant, the symptoms were consistent with Benadryl intoxication.