Mother gets 20 years for smearing faeces on daughter's catheter

A woman who police say was captured on video smearing faeces on her 3-year-old daughter’s catheter pleaded guilty to injury to a child has been sentenced to 20 years in prison. State District Judge Julie Kocurek sentenced Emily Beth McDonald, 25, under the terms of a plea bargain reached with prosecutors.



Outside court her lawyer, Bob Phillips, attempted to explain her behaviour. Phillips said McDonald was “under extreme psychological stress” at the time of her crime, stress he said was brought on by factors including fatigue and depression. He said that McDonald put faeces on her daughter’s catheter while the girl was hospitalised because McDonald sought to elevate the girl’s fever, something she had hoped would make doctors continue an antibiotics regimen that they had planned to end.

“Obviously it was a criminal act, and it was wrongheaded, but it was done with a pure heart,” Phillips said. Prosecutor Rob Drummond called McDonald’s behaviour “medical child abuse,” something he said is very rare. “It doesn’t have any other rationale than any other form of child abuse would have,” he said.


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McDonald has three children under the age of 10 who now live with their respective fathers, Phillips said. The girl victimized by the faeces is “thriving and well and going to be fine,” Phillips said.