Parents charged after baby with cleft palate dies
SPOKANE - The 20-year-old parents of a baby born with a cleft palate have been charged with second-degree murder after authorities say the child starved to death.
Katrina Lauderdale was born in Oct. 24, 2006, in Oregon, and had to be specially fed because of her birth defect.
In court papers filed last week, police say her parents, Deidre and Charles Lauderdale, were told to take their daughter in for regular doctor’s visits to make sure she was being fed properly, but that they failed to do so after moving to Spokane.
Investigators say Katrina weighed less than 7 pounds when she died - about five ounces shy of her birth weight.
The Spokane County Medical Examiner ruled the cause of death was malnutrition by neglect.