Couple Found Guilty Of Starving Adopted Son, Judge Cries When Recounting Abuse

While sentencing Felicia Adams-Franks and Jesse Franks, Judge Suzan Clark shed tears while recounting the abuse the young boy suffered.

A Washington couple have been sentenced to three decades in prison for starving their adopted 15-year-old son, Karreon Franks, to death and committing a number of atrocities against his two teenage brothers. While sentencing Felicia Adams-Franks and Jesse Franks, Judge Suzan Clark shed tears while recounting the abuse the young boy suffered leading up to his untimely murder, KOIN 6 News reports.

“What happened to Karreon is one of the saddest things I have seen in 37 years: a child with special needs in the condition he was in when he died,” said Clark. “Karreon lived a life that no human being should have to live.”

The fatal neglect occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic when Franks was attending school remotely. In the absence of free meals provided by the state’s free lunch program, the 15-year-old boy went without food and water at the behest of his adoptive parents. Karreon was pronounced dead on Nov. 26, 2020, at a Vancouver hospital, having lost 47% of his body weight and weighing only 61 pounds. Prosecutors argued that his adoptive parents displayed “deliberate cruelty” and “engaged in a pattern or practice of assault or torture” against their adoptive son who lived with several disabilities, including blindness.

The couple turned themselves into authorities in October 2021 and were subsequently charged with the domestic violence homicide of Karreon and the criminal mistreatment of his two teenage brothers; one of whom testified that his food had been restricted and that he had been beaten with an electrical cord while being locked inside of a room. The Davis Law Group claims that the state failed to protect the teenage boys after a complaint filed in 2017 alleged mistreatment in the home, according to The Root.

“Instead of making sure to contact the boy and get the boy immediate medical attention, the state sat on its legs and essentially the boy died a week later from starvation,” said attorney Chris Davis.