43-year-old Elizabeth Dubois was sentenced to spend the rest of her life in prison for denying medical care to her teenage son, who died of cancer in 2019.
Austin contracted a rare form of throat cancer, which caused a visible lump on his neck. Relatives noticed the lump and repeatedly pleaded with Dubois for years to get him medical care, according to Lapeer County Prosecutor John Miller.
He said Dubois declined to seek medical treatment for Austin over several years and made up a number of excuses, including not having enough time or money. Miller called the lack of treatment for Austin "intentional" and "egregious."
Austin weighed just 83 pounds when he died in May 2019.
Investigators pored over more than 13,000 pages of medical records and consulted with several health care experts, which included a nationally renowned specialist at the University of Michigan Medical Center with experience treating the cancer that Austin contracted.
Miller said Austin's cancer would have been treatable and quite possibly curable if he had received proper treatment early on.
Lapeer County mother gets life sentence for son's cancer death
Elizabeth Dubois received a mandatory sentence of life in prison with no chance of parole for the death of her teenage son, Austin.
