Less than a month after an Ohio woman was arrested and accused of giving her daughter an insulin overdose, another Ohio woman pleaded guilty for giving her daughter with Type 1 and other special needs a fatal amount of insulin.
According to a News-Herald report, Sandra Speck of Eastlake, Ohio pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter in connection with the 2016 death of her daughter, Mindy. Ms. Speck originally faced a murder charge after confessing to giving her daughter the overdose, but she and prosecutors struck a plea deal for her to plead guilty to the lesser charge. Scheduled to be sentenced on June 19th, she could received anything from probation to 11 years in prison.
Read: Parents who withheld insulin guilty of first-degree murder
All we know of Mindy’s death comes from Sandra’s confession of the crime. Mindy, who was 21 at the time she died, had Type 1 diabetes, autism, and cerebral palsy. The day before her death, she was treated at a local hospital for a urinary tract infection, and Sandra said she had become violent and difficult to control because of high glucose levels. After an insulin injection, Mindy was still combative, so Sandra gave her daughter several more injections; eventually, Mindy lost consciousness. Sandra did not attempt to revive her, saying she went to sleep next to her daughter.
Sandra had no prior criminal record at the time she committed the crime, and she was considered a model caregiver, according to her lawyer. Of course, it’s impossible to know if Sandra had ever used insulin to control her daughter before the fatal incident occurred.
Read: Mother accused of giving a child with Type 1 too much insulin
This marks the second incident when an insulin overdose made news in Ohio. In April, a Cleveland woman was arrested when her daughter with Type 1 was found to have been given an incredibly large amount of insulin. In that instance, hospital social workers alerted authorities of their suspicion that the overdose had been intentional.
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