[1]Mary G. Foxworth keeps her head down as she leaves the defense table in Lewis County Superior Court.
By Sharyn L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter
CHEHALIS – The Centralia mother of boy who at 16 years old was so malnourished he weighed less than 60 pounds pleaded guilty yesterday to first-degree criminal mistreatment.
Her husband made the same plea last week.
Mary G. Foxworth, 43, admitted to a judge in Lewis County Superior Court she failed to provide basic necessities of life, recklessly causing great bodily harm.
Foxworth, seated beside her lawyer Jacob Clark, answered the judge’s questions so quietly in the nearly empty courtroom, she could barely be heard.
Judge Joely O’Rourke queried her, to make sure she was capable of understanding the proceedings. The last grade Foxworth completed in school was the ninth grade, she said.
The couple entered into deals with prosecutors to plead guilty as charged and avoid a trial, in which if so-called aggravating circumstances were added and they were convicted, a judge would be free to sentence them to up to 10 years in prison.
The standard sentencing range they will face at sentencing is 51 months to 68 months of incarceration.
The charges were filed at the end of last year, after an investigation that began almost a year earlier. The couple has not been held in jail.
Prosecutors alleged the boy had not seen a doctor since 2007 and had not been enrolled in school since 2011, yet had two siblings who appeared healthy and presented little concern.
The situation came to light when the Foxworths took their son to the doctor in January of 2016, saying he had not been eating or drinking for about three weeks and had abdominal pain. Medical providers described him as skin and bones, whiter than a sheet of paper and he was hospitalized, suffering from severe malnutrition, severe constipation and anemia, according to Lewis County Deputy Prosecutor Melissa Bohm.
Bohm alleged further he weighed just 54 pounds, was missing patches of hair, could not stand on his own, was wearing pull-ups and needed 24 of his teeth treated when he was seen by a dentist.
Charging documents don’t indicate when he he was put in foster care, but state that at some point before December 2016, he had grown more than three inches and his weight increased to 93 pounds.
No further explanation has been shared by authorities, except Mary Foxworth reportedly said she didn’t know when her son began to lose weight because she was too wrapped up in her own depression.
She was accompanied in court yesterday by two women, who left with her after the short hearing.
Anthony S. Foxworth Sr., 45, and his wife are scheduled to be sentenced on Nov. 1. in Lewis County Superior Court.
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For background, read “‘Skin and bones’: Parents charged with severe neglect of teen” from Thursday January 5, 2017, here [2]