Aunt pleads guilty to abusing children

Aunt pleads guilty to abusing children

November 21, 2008

Sara Israelsen-Hartley

Deseret News

PROVO — Three weeks after a 9-year-old girl and her 8-year-old brother were taken from their abusive aunt and her boyfriend, prosecutors said they had gained almost 30 pounds, doubling their body weights.

Their aunt, Mary Heath, pleaded guilty Thursday morning to four felonies of child abuse for withholding food from the children as a way to discipline them.

Such actions "caused the children to lose substantial amounts of weight, resulting in malnutrition, which jeopardized the children's lives," prosecutor Tim Taylor told the judge.

Heath also used physical discipline, including striking the children with her hand or a belt, causing multiple bruises all over their bodies, Taylor said.

"In talking to some of the detectives (who) saw (the children), they were brought to tears," Taylor said. "I saw photos myself. And as a father, it was tough."

When police found the young girl on Oct. 14, she was wandering around her backyard in Eagle Mountain in just her underwear. She was clutching newspaper around herself to keep warm.

She told them she had been locked in the bathroom without food or clothes and had escaped by climbing out and falling 12 feet to the ground. Officers learned that her younger brother was still locked in a different bathroom.