Woman sentenced to 28 years for starving stepson, locking him in closet at Spring home

Tammi Bleimeyer, stepmother to a badly malnourished 5-year-old, was sentenced to 28 years in prison Monday. Tammi Bleimeyer, stepmother to a badly malnourished 5-year-old, was sentenced to 28 years in prison Monday. Image 1 of / 9 Caption Close Woman sentenced to 28 years for starving stepson, locking him in closet at Spring home 1 / 9 Back to Gallery

A woman convicted of starving her diaper-clad stepson and forcing him to sleep in a closet at her Spring home has been sentenced to 28 years in prison, according to officials.

A jury last week found Tammi Bleimeyer guilty of causing injury to a child in the harrowing case that prompted a guilty plea from the boy’s biological father, Bradley Bleimeyer, in 2016. He was handed a 15-year prison sentence on the same charge.

After 10 days of testimony, Harris County District Attorney’s Office spokesman Dane Schiller announced late Monday that the jury settled on sending Bleimeyer to prison for nearly three decades.

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The trial revealed the disturbing conditions the boy was forced to endure in the cramped crawlspace littered with exposed nails and wiring under the stairs. Prosecutors likened the closet to the cupboard under the stairs Harry Potter lived in for the fantasy series.

“He was nearly starved to death,” said Assistant District Attorney Stephen Driver. “Doctors compared his state of malnourishment to that of a Holocaust survivor.”

The case against the couple started in March 2014 with a tip from the child’s older brother.

The 16-year-old sibling told Harris County Precinct 4 Constable’s Office deputies that the couple was abusing the 5-year-old boy at their home in the 21500 block of Castlemont. During a welfare check, deputies found the small room with a mattress under the stairs.

Tammi Bleimeyer had already fled with the child when deputies went inside the home. He was rescued soon after when deputies tracked her to a motel in Humble, where Bleimeyer took him.

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The boy was covered in cuts and bruises and weighed only 29 pounds when deputies found him. He was rushed to a hospital, where a pediatrician determined the boy had suffered “severe physical abuse and habitual starvation.”

Had he not been treated, the doctor said the boy could have died within days, according to court documents.

The boy was living on slices of bread that were taken from him if he couldn’t eat it fast enough, according to prosecutors.

The teen who told deputies of his brother’s abuse said he believed someone slammed the child’s head in a wall and stunned him with a Taser.

The child’s health is believed to have quickly declined after Child Protective Services visited Tammi and Bradley Bleimeyer in February, about a month before the welfare check. Investigators who photographed and interviewed the boy at the time did not believe he was in poor health.

A photo of the malnourished child — his bones visible through the skin on his back — circulated in news reports after his rescue. The child is now 9 and in the care of his biological mother.

Constable Mark Herman, who was assistant chief when the case first unfolded, took note of the sentencing and thanked prosecutors in a tweet Monday night that shared the same photos of the boy's emaciated body.

A month after the couple's arrest, Herman went on the Dr. Phil show and called the investigation one of the worst cases of child abuse he had ever seen.

"There are a few things that will stick with you through your career in law enforcement -- this is one of them," Herman said.

He said CPS was investigating the family and that his deputies were in the home in January of that year. It was one of several times deputies were called to the home. Each time, Herman said, the Bleimeyers avoided them.

nicole.hensley@chron.com