Miss. grandmother, aunt get life sentences in exchange for guilty pleas in child’s starvation

2 plead guilty to starving 4-year-old in Miss.

FOREST, Miss. — A grandmother and an aunt pleaded guilty Tuesday to starving to death a 4-year-old boy who weighed only 19 pounds when he was found last year at his home in central Mississippi.

Circuit Judge Marcus Gordon accepted capital murder pleas from Austin Watkins’ grandmother, 43-year-old Janice Mowdy, and aunt, 22-year-old Stephanie Bell. In exchange for the guilty pleas, the judge sentenced the women to life in prison. They could have faced the death penalty if a jury had convicted them.

The judge questioned the women several times about why they didn’t help Austin, who was found dead at his home near Ludlow on Nov. 9.

“I fully and simply don’t understand how grown people can take a child who is 4 years old and let that child suffer medically and do nothing about it,” Gordon said. “You knew that he would die. No question about it.”

Mowdy told the judge she fed her grandson but he vomited often. She said Austin needed medical help, but she worked too much to take him to the doctor.

Mowdy said she gave the boy food the day before he died.

“I should have carried him to the doctor,” she said.

The judge told Mowdy and Bell that he noticed the two had shown very little emotion.

“Austin Watkins was a helpless individual who could not go to the doctor. He had no defense. His life depended on the two of you and you knew he would die,” Gordon said.