His mom starved him in a feces-covered ‘torture chamber.’ At 33 pounds, he escaped

A Utah mother who starved her young son in a feces-covered bathroom was sentenced to up to 45 years in prison Monday.

Officials believe the boy, rescued at 12-years-old, was held in isolation for up to 8 years by his mother Brandy Kay Jaynes, with some of that time spent in what investigators coined a “torture chamber,” according to The Spectrum.

Photos of the crime scene depict the young boy lying on the floor of the feces-covered bathroom in a house in Toquerville, Utah. Judging from photographs, the only part of the bathroom floor not covered in poop was the blanket the young boy was lying on, according to The Spectrum.

The bathroom door was locked from the outside, and had an audible alarm that would alert Jaynes if her son tried to escape. There was also a baby monitor that put a live-feed of the bathroom on Jaynes’ cellphone and computer.

“It’s just sickening — there’s no other word for it,” said Deputy County Attorney Angie Reddish-Day.

Jaynes’ son did not attend the court hearing, but did submit a letter that Reddish-Day read aloud.

In it, the boy details other cruel punishments that he accused his mother of inflicting on him.

“Instead of eating breakfast, lunch and dinner, I would only get one meal of a couple of hot dogs every other day for months,” the statement read. “I felt frozen when I was drenched with ice cold water in the winter.”

Kerri Smith — the doctor who first treated the boy — said the 12-year-old weighed just 33 pounds when he first arrived to the hospital with his father, Russell Orin Jaynes, who took him there, according to The Salt Lake Tribune.

Defense attorney Edward Flint pushed back against a pre-sentence report that Brandy Jaynes did not feel remorse for her actions, saying she has “has great sorrow, remorse and concern.”

Instead, Flint attributed the horrid conditions the young boy lived in to his mother’s personal issues. Jaynes became addicted to heroin and methamphetamines at least four months before the victim was discovered by his father, Flint argued, according to The Spectrum.

Flint also said that Jaynes was overwhelmed by having a child with “severe special needs.”

“This is not the story of a witch that needs to be burned at the stake,” he said. “That’s the popular sentiment. This is the story of a woman who began to fail in her duties to her family, in particular to one son who needed help in a different matter, and she failed in that regard and things got worse.

“Instead of admitting she couldn’t do it anymore and getting help, she compounded things and made them worse.”

Jaynes pled guilty to causing her son extreme malnutrition, extensive emotional and mental delays, and protracted use of limbs earlier this month, according to The Spectrum. She was ordered to serve three 1-15 year sentences in Utah State Prison consecutively.

The boy’s father was charged with third-degree felony reckless child abuse, according to The Salt Lake Tribune, for allegedly not intervening soon enough in his child’s situation. He is due in court on Sept. 19.

The boy, who doctors say may never have a normal gait, wrote in his statement read aloud in court that “I feel safe now. I started feeling safe when I got away from [my mom].”

Now 13-years-old, he signaled that he still wants a relationship with his mother.

“She did horrible things to me,” the statement read, “but she’s still my mom.”

This story was originally published August 29, 2017 at 12:38 PM with the headline "His mom starved him in a feces-covered ‘torture chamber.’ At 33 pounds, he escaped."