Jill Goff, a mum from Utah, has been given the maximum sentence of 15 years in prison for the death of her two-year-old son, Aiden.
The little boy died after his mum, Jill Goff, accidentally filled his sippy cup with her prescribed liquid methadone instead of Gatorade.
Her two other children, aged five and eight, also drank from the cup and needed to be hospitalised.
The death is believed to be accidental and neither the defence nor prosecution called for a prison sentence for Jill.
Judge Robert Adkins, however, felt the death was the result of extreme negligence, as the boy was not taken to hospital.
After the overdose was discovered, she encouraged the child to throw up and then put him down for a nap. An ambulance wasn’t called until after he was discovered not breathing several hours later.
“The court is extremely concerned of your lack of doing anything after your child had consumed that methadone and even when the second child was taken to the hospital," Judge Adkins stated while handing down the sentence.
“Your children who survived did so without the assistance of you, Ms. Goff.”
Camille Nielson, the distraught aunt of the children, supports the Judge’s decision.
“Everyone keeps saying this was an accident. It wasn’t an accident: She laid him down knowing he had overdosed and let him die.”
“She made the choice to let Aiden die, and I think she should have to suffer the consequences of that because everybody else is.”
