INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — A northwestern Indiana woman has been sentenced to seven years in prison for injecting fecal matter into her teenage son’s IV line while he was hospitalized for leukemia.
Tiffany Alberts, 44, of Wolcott was also sentenced Thursday by a Marion County judge to five years of probation. She was convicted of neglect and six counts of aggravated battery during a September bench trial, but acquitted of an attempted murder charge.
Staff at Riley Hospital for Children in Indianapolis contacted police in November 2016 after the then-15-year-old boy developed several infections and a nurse observed Alberts injecting his IV bag with an unknown substance, according to court records.
Blood tests revealed organisms usually found in human stool. Alberts admitted to police investigators that she had collected her son’s feces and injected it into his IV. She said she did it to get him moved to a different floor at the hospital so she claimed he would get better treatment.
The infections forced doctors to halt the boy’s chemotherapy treatment for almost two months, which increased his risk for relapse and lowered his survival rate.
