Father of boy who died of overheating sentenced to prison
ST. CHARLES, Mo. (AP) — The father of a 2-year-old boy who died after being left alone near a space heater for 38 hours while his parents binged on meth has been sentenced to 21 years in prison.
Lucas Russell Barnes was sentenced Friday for two felony counts of child abuse and neglect and manufacturing methamphetamine. He pleaded guilty July 6.
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports the boy, Braydon Barnes, died of overheating in December 2015.
His mother, 24-year-old Kathleen Marie Peacock was given the same sentence as Barnes on Sept. 19.
Prosecutors say the couple left the boy in his crib in a back room of the family's St. Charles mobile home near a space heater that did not have a thermostat to shut it off when it got too hot.