Honk News (Waukesha County, WI) – In Wisconsin, a 53-year-old mother will serve decades in prison for killing her autistic daughter by starvation, partly because she did not want to “upset” the victim by addressing her weight.
According to court documents, Amy S. Laszkiewicz was sentenced by Waukesha County Circuit Court Judge Michael O. Bohren on Thursday to 20 years in a state prison and an additional 15 years of supervised release for her involvement in the death of 23-year-old Cora Laszkiewicz.
In January, Amy Laszkiewicz and prosecutors came to an agreement whereby she entered an Alford plea to one count of wilfully exposing a vulnerable person to abuse in a situation that could have resulted in death. Although an Alford plea permits a person to retain their innocence while acknowledging that the state has enough evidence to prosecute them at trial, it is functionally equal to a guilty plea in that it results in a conviction.
Notably, a Milwaukee Fox affiliate, WITI, reported that Bohren’s sentence was even longer than the one that prosecutors had recommended. The court allegedly linked postmortem images of Cora Laszkiewicz to the victims of a World War II concentration camp during the sentence hearing.
In agreement with the judge, Assistant District Attorney Kristi Gordon told the court that Cora’s “severe autism” made matters worse.
However, Amy Laszkiewicz’s defence lawyer requested a probation-only punishment, and her family members, including Cora Laszkiewicz’s sister, also addressed the court for leniency.
Amy Laszkiewicz contacted 911 on the morning of January 4, 2023, after discovering her daughter dead in her bed, as previously reported by Law&Crime. Since 2017, the elder Laszkiewicz has been the younger’s full-time carer and legal guardian.
When deputies arrived at the house, they discovered the young woman unconscious, unable to breathe, and beyond the scope of medical assistance.
According to Dr. Amy Shiel’s medical findings, which were referenced in the complaint, the victim, who was 5’5″ and “very weak and emaciated,” weighed 70 pounds at the time of her death. According to medical data, Cora Laszkiewicz weighed 135 pounds approximately seven years before she passed away.
The medical expert documented further details that demonstrated the slow-motion character of the young woman’s death.
According to the report, the woman had nearly no adipose tissue on her body, her eyes were sunken in, and her hip and rib bones were exposed through her skin. The deceased woman’s skin, according to the medical examiner, was in a condition known as “turgor,” which is a state in which pinched human skin can not adequately recover, signifying severe dehydration.
According to the criminal complaint, Cora Laszkiewicz died by “homicide, with the carer failing to provide adequate hydration and nutrition.”
According to authorities, Amy Laszkiewicz was generally open about how her daughter had been confined and essentially starved of food and anything that would have allowed her to return to her previous level of normalcy.
According to the complaint, Amy Laszkiewicz would later inform law police that her daughter “did not want to go to school, have visitors, or go anywhere” and that she had not left their home since the start of the COVID-19 outbreak. Her daughter last saw a doctor in person in 2019, she informed authorities.