Dehydrated boy, 7, weighed only 28 pounds

Police say Haether Poertner starved her 7-year-old son to death.

My daughter is 18 months old and weighs 27 pounds. She is the smallest child in her daycare class. Charles Poertner of Newport News, Virginia weighed just one pound more than her when he died in June – at age 7.

He was found covered in dead fleas, debris and dirt, wearing only a diaper and laying on the living room floor, where police say he’d been for several days, according to the article in the Newport News. Charles, who had Cerebral Palsy, relied on a feeding tube for nourishment. It was dirty and discolored.

Charles died of severe dehydration, and medical and nutritional neglect, according to the ME.

On Dec. 3, after investigating Charles’ death for nearly six months, police finally charged his gestation device, Haether Kiran Poertner, 26, with felony murder and three counts of felony child neglect. She’s being held without bail.

Poertner was supposed to give Charles a prescription liquid food through his feeding tube. When the prescription expired, she switched to an instant, non-fat dry milk. Charles didn’t get the nutrients and calories he needed from that drink. The police complaint states that Poertner admitted she realized the dry milk was inadequate nutritionally and that Charles had lost weight drastically because of it.

When police found Charles, they also found two younger boys, ages 2 and 4 covered in feces, and the 4-year-old locked in an upstairs bedroom with the door deadbolted from outside. As we’ve come to expect in these cases, the house was filthy and bags of dirty diapers were everywhere. The house was so filled with trash, police could barely walk through it. The boys’ dad is in the Navy and was overseas when his wife starved their oldest child to death.

My best friend is in the Navy and has a special needs child. The Navy provides ample support for her whole family, therapy for her son and kick-ass health coverage that has made it possible to get him the medication and help he needs to thrive. So before some family member of this utter waste of a healthy uterus comes to this site to defend her by whining about how overwhelming and isolating it can be for a mother with a special needs child and a husband overseas, let me proactively cry bullshit.

There was simply no excuse for what Poertner did to her son. And I’m so upset over this story that I can’t even think of a good enough punishment for what this bitch did. But I’m sure our BB readers will have an idea or two.

Thanks to Pete Dujardin of the Daily Mail in Virginia for the tip.