A 16-year-old girl with cerebral palsy weighed only 23lbs and could not walk or talk when she was removed from her family home after being starved by her mother.
Darlene Armstrong measured just 3’10’’ tall when she was rushed to hospital in Chicago in March.
The severely disabled girl could have been rescued four months earlier if the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) had followed set procedures, an investigation by the Chicago Tribune revealed.
Darlene’s mother, Rosetta Harris, 50, pleaded guilty to endangering the life of a child.
The mother, who had no prior criminal record, was sentenced to 18 months of probation and ordered to undergo parenting classes.
Doctors at the Comer Children’s hospital said the girl, now 17, had been starved for a considerable period of time.
When Darlene was brought to hospital she weighed only 23 lbs – just over one and a half stone - the typical weight of a two or three-year-old child.
