An Austrian court sentenced a woman to 20 years in prison Thursday night for bringing her 12-year-old son to the brink of death by locking him in a dog carrier.
In the case that shocked the Alpine country, the 33-year-old defendant was found guilty of attempted murder, torture of a minor and kidnapping after a seven-hour trial.
His 40-year-old accomplice, who called for help, was sentenced to 14 years in prison for encouraging the “continued use of violence” against the child through chat messages and phone calls.
The courts ordered him to be placed in a forensic therapy center, with the psychiatric report certifying “serious and permanent mental disorders” without “suspending his capacity to judge.”
The president of the jury estimated that the now 13-year-old child was “completely destroyed.”
The main accused claimed in the debates that she just wanted to “discipline” her son and that she was “terribly sorry for what happened,” according to a statement from the APA agency.
On November 22, 2022, the boy was taken to the hospital in a coma and hypothermia. The unemployed single mother was arrested the next day and then imprisoned in Krems, west of Vienna.
For several months, when she opened the apartment windows, she poured cold water on the child despite the sub-zero temperatures, causing his body temperature to drop to 26.8 degrees Celsius. Rescued at the last minute, he only weighed 40 kilos.
She also beat him, deprived him of food, tied him up and locked him in a small dog carrier, an incident that sparked public outrage.
During the hearing, videos recorded by the defendant were played showing the child unable to move or speak.
The defense pointed to possible failings by authorities when the school issued persistent reports.
A few weeks before his hospitalization, the boy had also run away and asked a family to take him in. According to the Austrian daily newspaper Der Standard, the police took him home.