MOM PLEADS GUILTY IN SCALDING DEATH OF ADOPTED BOY
She, husband left 2-year-old to die in basement
Author: Bruce Cadwallader
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
A nurse's assistant who pleaded guilty yesterday to helping kill her adopted son wrote in her diary that she and her husband discussed getting rid of their two adopted children "like dogs in a pound."
Amy Thompson wrote in her computer journal that just seeing the 2-year-old Russian boy and her 3-year-old adopted daughter, also from Russia, sickened her.
"We discussed how we would like to get rid of them, like dogs in a pound," Assistant County Prosecutor Daniel Hawkins quoted from the journal.
Columbus police found the journal entries while investigating the death of Liam Thompson. He died in October, days after being scalded in a bathtub.
Thompson, 33, pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter and endangering children before Common Pleas Judge Dale A. Crawford.
She was sentenced to 14 years in prison.
Crawford said he would not consider early release.
Thompson's husband, Gary, 32, pleaded guilty in December to murder for holding down the child in the 140-degree water on Oct. 11. He is serving a mandatory 15 years to life in prison.
Hawkins said Mr. Thompson tortured the child while his wife was at work at a nursing home. But when she returned home and saw the boy's peeling skin, she did nothing to aid the child.
The couple placed the child on a mattress in the basement, and barricaded the area with boxes and furniture, Hawkins said.
The boy died five days later without medical attention.
"I want to leave him somewhere and walk away," Mrs. Thompson wrote in another part of the journal, Hawkins said.
She withdrew her plea of not guilty by reason of insanity yesterday after a psychological report found her competent to stand trial.
The couple's adopted daughter and biological children were placed in foster care.
bcadwallader@dispatch.com