Vegan couple will serve life sentences for starving baby to death on a diet of soy milk and apple juice

Couple lived a vegan lifestyle and ate no animal products

Claimed they were sticking to their beliefs over food

A Vegan couple who only fed their newborn son soy milk and apple juice have lost out in their bid to have their murder convictions overturned.



Jade Sanders, 27, and Lamont Thomas, 31, had appealed against their conviction four years ago over the death of their six-week-old son who starved to death.



The Georgia Supreme Court upheld the murder conviction of the couple who claimed they were sticking to their beliefs over food.



Charged: Lamont Thomas (L) and Jade Sanders (R) had appealed against their conviction four years ago over the death of their six-week-old son

The two first-time parents had rushed their malnourished son Crown Shakur to hospital after he began to have trouble breathing in 2005.



Doctors declared him dead on arrival after failing to resuscitate him.

An autopsy found his death was due to extreme malnourishment or starvation.



When police searched the couple's flat in Fulton County, Georgia, they found a soy milk bottle, an apple juice bottle and a rancid-smelling baby bottle caked with debris.



Prosecutors said an investigation revealed the two, who lived a vegan lifestyle and ate no animal products, only fed their baby soy milk and apple juice, and had failed to seek medical treatment when their young son was wasting away.

Prosecutor Chuck Boring said during the trial no matter how many times they want to say, '"We're vegans, we're vegetarians," that's not the issue in this case. The child died because he was not fed. Period.'



Defence lawyers argued at the murder trial that they did not realise their baby was in danger.

At trial, Saunders claimed she also fed her son breast milk and soy milk formula, reports the Atlantic Journal-Constitution.



Tragic: The couple's son, Crown, weighed only three-and-a-half pounds when he died, aged six months

'I loved my son - and I did not starve him,' Jade Sanders said at her May 2007 sentencing hearing.

According to authorities, the child died of bronchopneumonia due to extreme malnourishment or starvation.



The couple were found guilty of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment.



In her appeal, Sanders' lawyer argued the evidence wasn't strong enough to support the verdict.



And Thomas' lawyer claimed his trial attorney was ineffective because he failed to call an expert to support his theory that his son's death was linked to cystic fibrosis and not starvation.

