An Ohio, USA woman has been jailed after admitting to killing her four-year-old daughter by feeding her a diet of baby bottles filled with Mountain Dew.
Tamara Banks, 41, was sentenced to up to 13 and a half years in prison this week after pleading guilty to involuntary manslaughter over the death of her daughter Karmity Hoeb in January 2022.
Karmity passed away in hospital after suffering complications related to diabetes, as a prosecutor described how the child’s teeth had rotted away by the time she died.
The little girl’s father, Christopher Hoeb, 53, also pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter and will be sentenced on June 11.
Banks pleaded guilty in March, after prosecutors indicted both her and Karmity’s father with a number of charges including murder and child endangerment.
Karmity died at the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center after being rushed there when she began showing symptoms related to type-1 diabetes.
The girl reportedly suffered horrific neglect throughout her life, and was denied medical care and proper nutrition despite showing signs of severe medical complications.
According to the Cincinnati Enquirer, days before her death, prosecutors said Karmity suffered from a ‘serious medical issue’, but her parents failed to call for help or take her to an emergency room.
Her symptoms deteriorated until she turned blue and stopped breathing, and only then did Banks call 911.
By the time Medics tried to briefly revive her, scans showed she was brain dead.
Karmity’s cause of death was listed as diabetic ketoacidosis which spread to her brain, with prosecutors condemning Banks and Hoeb as her death could have been prevented if they helped her untreated diabetes.
‘This child did not have to die,’ concluded Clermont County Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Clay Tharp.
Prosecutors also showed howTamara Banks took efforts to meet her own medical needs but ignored her daughter’s.
This included regularly refilling her own prescriptions and scheduled doctors to visit her apartment for various illnesses.
Alongside the four-year-old’s diabetes, Karmity also suffered from a condition that caused her teeth to dissolve because her mother would feed her almost exclusively Mountain Dew from a baby bottle.
Note that a regular 12-ounce can of Mountain Dew contains almost 50 grams of sugar.
Prosecutors added that Karmity was continually fed through baby bottles long after she should have been weaned off them, and there was no evidence that Banks ever took her to see a dentist.
Alarmingly, Karmity’s online obituary includes a tribute written by Banks and Hoeb, where they spoke of their love for their daughter and wrote that she had a happy childhood despite the evidence of abuse and neglect.
‘Our precious daughter Karmity Faythe Hoeb that we nicknamed Boogie which suited her personality because she loved to be silly,’ the grammatically-incorrect obituary read.
‘She also loved looking at herself in the mirror because she knew how beautiful and special she was.
‘Smart and Vibrant. The camera loved her almost as much as she loved smiling real big and saying cheese. Each day she woke up full of joy and love.
‘Every day she was playing with her Mickey buddies and racing her cars. She touched everyone that ever laid eyes on her or spent any time with her. She will always be remembered as our daughter, our guardian angel now.’
