The mother and grandmother of Braxtyn Smith, who died in 2024 after months of physical and sexual abuse, pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the case.
The mother and grandmother of a 10-year-old Bangor boy who died after months of abuse were each sentenced to a decade in prison Friday for their roles in the child’s death.
Braxtyn Smith was pronounced dead in 2024 following months of malnutrition, beatings and sexual abuse at the hands of family members. The boy had been bruised, burned and underfed for a year or more, according to Bangor police records.
Braxtyn was “so emaciated that he appeared to be the victim of a concentration camp or end stage cancer,” prosecutors said in court filings.
The boy’s mother, Jem Bean, will serve 10 years in prison after being sentenced Friday to 25 years with all but 10 suspended, followed by six years of probation and $375 in restitution.
“Bean’s failure to protect her son amounted to a gross deviation of what would be expected of a reasonable mother,” prosecutors wrote in Bean’s sentencing memo. “Braxtyn’s death was a reasonably foreseeable consequence of the pattern of abuse.”
Smith’s paternal grandmother, Mistie Latourette, received a similar sentence Friday for her role in the boy’s death: 25 years with all but 10 suspended, followed by four years of probation.
Both Bean and Latourette initially pleaded not guilty to charges of depraved indifference murder before pleading guilty to lesser charges of manslaughter. A manslaughter charge in Maine carries a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison and $25,000 in fines.
The boy’s father, Joshua Smith, has pleaded guilty to murder in connection to his son’s death. His sentencing is scheduled for late September.
Braxtyn endured torturous conditions at the hands of family members for months prior to his death in February 2024. His family members admitted to withholding food and inflicting beatings upon him as punishment.
Sometimes, Braxtyn would try to dig for leftover food in the trash. His parents responded by zip-tying his hands together so he couldn’t eat. Joshua Smith told detectives Braxtyn had hurt his mouth trying to chew through the ties, court records state.
“Instead of acknowledging that her son was so hungry he was eating out of the trash, (Bean’s) solution was to punish and restrain him,” prosecutors wrote in court filings.
Affidavits from Bangor Police Department detectives also showed there was evidence that the child had been sexually abused.
“One can only imagine his suffering when beaten, starved and restrained in the ensuing months until his death in February 2024,” Latourette’s sentencing memo reads.
Hours before his death, Braxtyn told his parents he wasn’t feeling well. They put him in the shower, where he collapsed and began vomiting. At one point, he stopped breathing. It took nine hours for Latourette and Bean to bring Braxtyn to St. Joseph Hospital in Bangor.
He arrived in a “lifeless” state, according to court documents. The boy’s vomit smelled like pet food, doctors said. He’d stopped breathing and lost his pulse. Doctors were able to briefly resuscitate him. But his family didn’t seem to care.
“Latourette’s only response to the resuscitation of her emaciated, critically ill grandson was, ‘He’s a liar,'” prosecutors wrote. “Braxtyn never regained consciousness to tell his side of the story.”
The boy, still unconscious, was brought to the intensive care unit at Bangor’s Northern Light Eastern Maine Medical Center, where he was treated for internal bleeding between his brain and skull, ulcers on his back and loss of hair — conditions associated with battered child syndrome, according to an autopsy by the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner.
A doctor at the hospital told police they had never seen an instance of child abuse as horrific as Braxtyn’s in their 30-year career in pediatric critical care.
Braxtyn had tears visible beneath his eyelids when he first arrived at the emergency room. The tears stopped shortly after, one doctor said, “indicating to her that Braxtyn’s brain was no longer capable of registering pain or emotion,” prosecutors wrote in court filings.
The boy died at the hospital hours after he arrived.
Dylan Tusinski is an investigative reporter with the Maine Trust for Local News' quick strike team, where his stories largely focus on money, drugs and government accountability. He has written about international... More by Dylan Tusinski
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