A mother has been sentenced to nearly a decade in prison for feeding her diabetic nine-year-old daughter mostly Mountain Dew from a baby bottle.
Tamara Banks, 41, gave her daughter, Karmity Hoeb, a diet of mostly the sugary soft drink and almost all of her teeth had rotted out when she died, prosecutors claimed.
No evidence was found of Karmity seeing a dentist.
‘This child did not have to die,’ said Clermont County Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Clay Tharp. ‘This is one of the most tragic cases I have ever encountered.’
Karmity’s cause of death was determined as diabetic ketoacidosis, a condition that is life-threatening to people with diabetes. She had diabetes but it was ‘left undiagnosed and untreated over a long period of time’, according to prosecutors.
The girl was discovered unresponsive in January 2022.
Banks and Karmity’s father, Christopher Hoeb, 53, called 911 and she was rushed to a local hospital. Doctors declared her brain dead and she was later taken off life support at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center.
The mother pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter in March.
Both she and Hoeb were indicted on murder, involuntary manslaughter and endangering children charges in the summer. Prosecutors dropped other charges against the couple after they agreed to plead guilty to involuntary manslaughter, court records showed.
A judge sentenced Banks to nine years in prison on Friday morning.
Children can become sick with diabetes quickly and can go into a coma or die if the condition is not treated, said Chris Peltier, president of the American Academy of Pediatrics’ Ohio chapter.
‘Eventually, the body will just shut down,’ Peltier told WCPO.
Hoeb has also been charged in his daughter’s death and his sentencing is scheduled for June 11.
Banks was sentenced nearly a year after a mother was jailed for life for fatally poisoning her five-year-old son with anti-depressants to ‘take him away’ from her ex in Greater Manchester.
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