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Sugar Cookie

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When police found 13-year-old Jalen Goldsborough dead in his family’s home last year, the disabled boy was severely malnourished with sunken eyes. He was bloated, and his skin was pale and dry. And he was covered with clothes and blankets, including a hooded sweatshirt that mostly concealed his face.

When his body was later examined by a state coroner, he was found with multiple bed sores, diagnosed as suffering from acute pneumonia, and weighed only 24 pounds. The doctor concluded he died of neglect and starvation.

Police soon learned that his mother, Amy FaJohn, 37, had left the boy behind after discovering him dead. She would later tell detectives that Jalen was bedridden and had to be fed with a feeding tube, and she was the only person who routinely fed the boy. She became depressed, she said, and would routinely play video games for hours on end.

On Wednesday, 10 months after Jalen’s neglected remains were found, FaJohn pleaded no contest in Hopewell Circuit Court to second-degree murder, reduced from first-degree. An accompanying charge of felony child neglect was withdrawn as part of a plea deal.

Jalen’s life was filled with misery almost from birth. He never had a chance to live normally.

The boy was permanently disabled from horrendous physical abuse he suffered as an infant in 2004 at the hands of his father, Charles Byron Goldsborough II, who pleaded guilty 14 years ago to aggravated malicious wounding. The father was sentenced to 50 years in prison with 30 years suspended.

He abused his son so severely that a prosecutor said at the time that Goldsborough, then 27, “for all intents and purposes ended the life of his son in all but physiology.”
FaJohn was left to pick up the pieces.

“Jalen was born a perfectly healthy baby boy,” FaJohn’s attorney, Matthew Stewart, told the court on Wednesday. “He was a victim of a shaken baby assault by his biological father at 17 days old, and suffered massive injuries. Although Ms. FaJohn was not present when the injuries occurred, she has carried some self-blame over the years.”

From that point forward, Jalen required “24/7 care from Ms. FaJohn,” Stewart added. “He initially ate from a bottle, but eventually had a feeding tube installed.

Ms. FaJohn spent most of her days and nights at home, alone with Jalen and sometimes the other children. She experienced the enormous stress that goes along with that sort of isolation and duty, and experienced depression and suicidal thoughts.”

In a summary of evidence presented by Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Matthew Bingham, after police received a call from FaJohn’s mother about finding the boy dead, officers discovered that Jalen’s feeding tube was not connected to the medical device that fed him, stationed by the boy’s bed. The machine had been turned off.

Detectives learned that FaJohn lived with her boyfriend of nine years, Anthony Saunders, and the couple had two other children, ages 6 and 10.

Aside from Jalen, no other family members were at the home when officers arrived about 9:30 p.m.

Shortly before midnight, FaJohn and Saunders were brought to police headquarters and made statements.

FaJohn told a detective that she went to Jalen earlier that evening and discovered he wasn’t breathing. She indicated she attempted to perform CPR but didn’t know how to do it. FaJohn said she didn’t call 911 for help “because she didn’t know what to do and that it all happened so fast,” Bingham told the court.

When questioned by detectives, FaJohn said beginning in December 2017 she decided to begin feeding Jalen every other day, instead of every day, but sometimes the gaps in feedings would be longer than every other day.

Stewart told the court that FaJohn began feeding Jalen less frequently because he would experience discomfort from feedings, including gas and bloating, or indigestion-type symptoms. The attorney said FaJohn had been instructed to remove and flush the feeding tube when that occurred, “but also decreased feeding consistency in attempts to make him more comfortable.”

He said he would see Jalen every day but couldn’t recall the last time Jalen was taken to a doctor. He admitted noticing that Jalen’s feeding tube would become unplugged during the night and that the boy was losing weight.

“He stated that he was a ‘horrible person’ and that he did not do anything about Jalen’s condition,” Bingham told the judge.

Saunders, who was charged with felony child neglect, pleaded guilty to the offense on Wednesday. He and FaJohn were tried together, but Saunders has been free on bond while FaJohn remains jailed.
Jalen’s biological father, who remains incarcerated at the Lunenburg Correctional Center, violently abused the boy on Dec. 23, 2004, after he became frustrated by a lack of sleep, according to evidence in that case. At the time, Goldsborough lived with FaJohn.

Goldsborough told police he began shaking his son violently and, after doing so, threw the child in the air a couple of times “like a pizza,” letting the baby hit the bed at least once.

Goldsborough also told investigators that he held the child — only 17 days old — in one hand and smacked him at least once with his open hand, so hard that it made his hand hurt.

At the hospital that day, doctors found the baby had a brain injury, as well as multiple fractures to his legs and skull. The child was rendered blind, his life span was reduced, and his brain and skull stopped growing normally.

He has an expected release date from prison on May 30, 2022, according to the Virginia Department of Corrections.
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Egg & Step Penis
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Ballsack that beat 7 shook Jalen when he was 17 days old
Egg & Step Penis
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Jalen
 
What she did was horrible, but I also have some pity for her situation. Being sentenced to care for an extremely disabled child 24/7, probably with no assistance, is a lot for anyone to take on. She doesn't exactly look like a rocket scientist. Why wasn't some health services person assigned to at least check up on the poor kid every few months? What she did was awful, and she obviously should have told social services, or someone, that she was at the end of her rope and she had to have some kind of help. Not everyone has the wherewithal to deal with a situation like this.
 
@Brillig

She could have contacted the state and placed the child in state care.

I am sure she was receiving financial assistance for the maintenance of the child and I would also assume she refused home health attendants in her home.

She left that child to suffer in filth, hunger and loneliness while she was living at another residence with her husband and children- so I will give her the same compassion she gave her son- none.
 
What she did was horrible, but I also have some pity for her situation. Being sentenced to care for an extremely disabled child 24/7, probably with no assistance, is a lot for anyone to take on. She doesn't exactly look like a rocket scientist. Why wasn't some health services person assigned to at least check up on the poor kid every few months? What she did was awful, and she obviously should have told social services, or someone, that she was at the end of her rope and she had to have some kind of help. Not everyone has the wherewithal to deal with a situation like this.
She could have put him in a care home. But keeping him at her house gave her a social security disability check for him and possibly a small check for being his caregiver.

Naw, fuck her. She liked the income too much to place him in a care facility.
 
What she did was horrible, but I also have some pity for her situation. Being sentenced to care for an extremely disabled child 24/7, probably with no assistance, is a lot for anyone to take on. She doesn't exactly look like a rocket scientist. Why wasn't some health services person assigned to at least check up on the poor kid every few months? What she did was awful, and she obviously should have told social services, or someone, that she was at the end of her rope and she had to have some kind of help. Not everyone has the wherewithal to deal with a situation like this.
This. I have worked with severely disabled kids much like this boy for years, and while I have endless compassion for these kids, I have seen the impact on families and I 100% understand how it could come to this, especially when mental illness comes into play as it very clearly did here. No matter how much you love your child, caring for a kid with permanent, severe disability and constant need is overwhelming. It can completely destroy one's life, and there is not nearly enough support for families of children with severe disabilities. That poor boy was not long for this world regardless. I would bet anything that his mom, in the back of her mind, knew exactly what she was doing and believed that him dying sooner rather than later was a weight lifted off everyone. I'm not excusing what she did, but I understand.
 
What she did was horrible, but I also have some pity for her situation. Being sentenced to care for an extremely disabled child 24/7, probably with no assistance, is a lot for anyone to take on. She doesn't exactly look like a rocket scientist. Why wasn't some health services person assigned to at least check up on the poor kid every few months? What she did was awful, and she obviously should have told social services, or someone, that she was at the end of her rope and she had to have some kind of help. Not everyone has the wherewithal to deal with a situation like this.
She coulda left the kid with social services as ya say and wouldn't have been charged with a thing. But nope she and the other abused the kid til the child died. Zero sympathy. Justice needs to be done. Yesterday.
 
I am actually alarmed that people actually liked and supported the statement from Ramona.

The child would have never been discharged to the mother from the hospital when he was an infant without services in place. She would have been unable to work due to his needs and would have been eligible for most if not all social services.

Do you think she could afford the medical bills that the child incurred from his earlier abuse?

Do you actually think she sent the SSI check back when she decided to starve and neglect that child to death?

She was not so overwhelmed that she could not fuck and create two more children and live at another residence with her penis.
 
I am actually alarmed that people actually liked and supported the statement from Ramona.

The child would have never been discharged to the mother from the hospital when he was an infant without services in place. She would have been unable to work due to his needs and would have been eligible for most if not all social services.

Do you think she could afford the medical bills that the child incurred from his earlier abuse?

Do you actually think she sent the SSI check back when she decided to starve and neglect that child to death?

She was not so overwhelmed that she could not fuck and create two more children and live at another residence with her penis.
Exactly
 
these are the tough ones. I don’t support what she did, it’s terrible, but as mentioned I could see how it could get to this point. If she was getting paid, had boyfriend and and her mom(?) around something should have been done, she should have reached out and said she can’t do this. If she was emotionally abandoned or had untreated mental issues....gah I don’t know. I’m going to shut up now.
 
No excuse for what she did...NONE. I don't care how TIRED she was, how OVERWHELMED, yadda, yadda. She had CHOICES, that boy had NONE. She killed him just as if she'd taken a knife and plunged it into his heart. And she deserves as much sympathy as she showed her son - NONE.
 
November 11th 2019
The mother of a Virginia boy who died from severe starvation and neglect has been ordered to spend 20 years in prison.

38-year-old Amy FaJohn was sentenced to 40 years in prison, with half of that time suspended, on her second-degree murder conviction.

Thirteen-year-old Jalen Goldsborough was found dead last year. He had sores, sunken eyes and weighed 24 pounds. A police detective testified FaJohn told him she started limiting her son's food intake in December 2017.

Prosecutors say Goldsborough was disabled after his father physically abused him as an infant. Charles Byron Goldsborough II is serving time for shaking his son so violently it caused blindness and brain injuries.

FaJohn's live-in boyfriend, Anthony Saunders, was sentenced to five years in prison.
 
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