Prosecutors said the 4-year-old “suffered for a majority of her short life” after she wasn’t diagnosed or treated for her diabetes, adding that the child’s soda diet also left her with rotten teeth.
An Ohio mother — whose 4-year-old daughter died from diabetes-related complications due to a diet mostly consisting of Mountain Dew — has been sentenced to prison.
According to the Cincinnati Enquirer on Friday, Tamara Banks, 41, was sentenced to at least nine years in prison after she previously pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter for the 2022 death of her 4-year-old daughter, Karmity.
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The young girl died in January 2022 after Banks and the child’s father, Christopher Hoeb, found her unresponsive and called 911, according to local Cincinnati news station FOX 19. Prosecutors said that although they were able to revive her, she remained unresponsive and was taken to the hospital, where she was declared brain dead. She was taken off life support a few days later.
Clermont County Prosecutor Mark Tekulve said, per FOX 19, that Karmity “suffered for a majority of her short life” as a result of “the neglect and abuse by her parents.”
Prosecutors said Banks and Hoeb denied their daughter proper nutrition and medical care, and the girl had undiagnosed diabetes.
According to the Cincinnati Enquirer, prosecutors also said the parents mostly fed Karmity Mountain Dew from a baby bottle, adding that Banks would often mix baby formula with the soda, even though she was at an age when she should have been weaned off a bobble.
FOX 19 reported that Karmity’s soda diet rotted her teeth, saying she almost had none left. The Cincinnati Enquirer also noted that prosecutors said investigators couldn’t find evidence the young girl had ever seen a dentist.
“This is one of the most tragic cases I have ever encountered,” Clermont County Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Clay Tharp told the outlet.
Karmity died on January 25, 2022. The coroner’s office determined the girl’s cause of death as diabetic ketoacidosis, a “serious complication of diabetes that can be life-threatening,” according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. While DKA is most common with Type 1 diabetes, it can also happen with those with Type 2.
Prosecutors explained that Karmity “had diabetes that was left undiagnosed and untreated over a long period of time,” and said her death could have been prevented.
“This child did not have to die,” Tharp told the Cincinnati Enquirer.
Meanwhile, prosecutors also shared that Karmity’s death was not the only diabetes-related incident in the household, saying that Banks has older children who were mistreated while under her care. According to prosecutors, one of her sons once fell into a coma when he was four due to complications from undiagnosed diabetes, and neglected his medical needs after he recovered from the coma.
Banks, meanwhile, told the judge in court, “I thought I was taking care of her.”
In July 2023, Banks and Hoeb, 53, were indicted for murder, involuntary manslaughter, and two counts of child endangering, according to FOX 19. The murder and child-endangering charges were later dismissed.
Like Banks, Hoeb pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter. His sentencing is set for June 11.
Although Banks was sentenced to nine years in prison, it can be extended as a result of her behavior in prison under an Ohio state law, according to the Cincinnati Enquirer. She can possibly serve as long as 13 and a half years.
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