A fundraiser was organised by two adoptive parents accused of killing their five-year-old son in order to pay for their legal representation.
Jacob Maloberti, a prison guard, and his wife Lauren are charged with killing 5-year-old Landon by assaulting him.
Police in Greensburg, Pennsylvania, accused the pair after they took the kid to the hospital on January 30 and said he had been “wobbly from Covid”; however, the boy actually suffered three brain bleeds.
Lauren created a GoFundMe page two days later, requesting donations to cover their legal expenses.
“Tragy struck our family when our precious baby boy went unresponsive,” she stated. He was intubated after I took him to the ER, and ever since then, he has been unresponsive. The result does not appear promising.
CPS removed our parental rights while we were in the hospital while an investigation was being conducted.
“I’m heartbroken.” We are heartbroken. We both require competent lawyers. I live for my children. As we negotiate life right now with our new uncertainty, any little amount helps.
“Support our fight Without our kids, I couldn’t survive. Already, I’m losing my boy.
In a later update, she wrote that her heart was “breaking in a million pieces” and that the parents needed to be prepared for the “most unimaginable outcome.”
Due to head and neck injuries from severe force trauma, Landon passed away on February 7.
The page had raised $5,350 before it was deleted when the mother later begged for more money to pay for burial expenses.
Landon had a “very tough” life, Westmoreland district attorney Nicole W. Ziccarelli said at a press conference.
According to her, Landon suffered blunt force injuries to his head, neck, body, and extremities.
His injuries resulted in significant pain at the moment they were sustained, as well as functional impairments like the inability to stand, eat, or drink, as well as unconsciousness.
Tragically, Landon endured pain and abuse throughout his brief life. With the respect and regard due Landon, we aim to pursue this lawsuit.
“Landon also had numerous bruises in various stages of healing prior to his death and prolonged and intensive medical interventions.”
Police questioned the couple’s other five children, who claimed that Landon received a spanking because “he does not learn his lesson.”
They claimed that while Lauren chastised Landon, they would hear him sob as she sent the kids upstairs, and that this made Lauren’more upset’ with him.
Kathie Sheffler, Landon’s biological grandmother, told police that she had been forbidden from seeing her grandson since April of last year.
T.J. Klobucar, the police chief in Delmont, claimed in a statement that he had “never faced an incident like this.”
Jacob, a guard at the Fayette State Correctional Facility, is accused of one crime of criminal homicide, two charges of aggravated child abuse, endangering the welfare of children, criminal conspiracy, and endangering the life of a child.
The same charges as well as one further count of first-degree murder are brought against Lauren.
On August 8, the pair is scheduled to return to court.