An American woman whose child was murdered by her ex-boyfriend was sentenced to 16 months in prison. At the time of the crime, she was working, but the jury found that the mother “failed to protect the child” against the abuser.
Rebecca Hogue, 29, was convicted in the first degree last November for the murder of her son Jeremiah Ryder Johnson, 2. The family is from the US state of Oklahoma.
The jury recommended that she be sentenced to life in prison, but the judge suspended the sentence to 16 months. This means that she will still have 13 months in prison, because of the time she has already served.
Upon sentencing, Rebecca Hogue said she would do anything to get back and avoid her son’s death.
“I was so proud to have such a beautiful, strong, smart and healthy child,” Hogue said, according to Oklahoma’s Norman Transcript newspaper.
“For the past two years, the only thing that has brought me peace is that the man who did this is dead. I know my son is in heaven and that he [o ex-namorado] It’s not even close to him.”
In sentencing Hogue, Judge Michael Tupper said she “did not deserve to die in prison”.
“You’re not a monster,” said the judge. “You have value.”
Hogue’s case came to the attention of media and women’s rights groups after she was charged with first-degree murder under Oklahoma’s controversial “failure of protection” law.
Under the law, parents who fail to protect their children from child abuse can be charged with the same crimes as the abuser, including sentences such as life in prison.
Ryder was found dead in January 2020. Hogue found his son unconscious upon arriving home from a 12-hour shift at a bar. His boyfriend, Christopher Trent, had disappeared.
Camera footage carried by rescuers that day shows the mother trying to administer first aid to the child, who was pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital.
Four days after Ryder’s death, police found Trent’s body in the Wichita Mountains after an apparent suicide. The words “Rebecca is innocent” were carved into a nearby tree.
The coroner’s report concluded that Ryder’s cause of death stemmed from “trauma from a blunt object”, and prosecutors said it was clear Trent had killed the child.
Hogue said she had no idea her boyfriend was abusing her child until the boy’s death, although she had noticed days earlier that the child had minor, unexplained injuries.
Prosecutors said Hogue searched her boyfriend’s phone for warning signs that the child might be being abused, suggesting she felt her son might be in danger. These facts were cited by the Prosecutor’s Office to point out the “protection sheet”, because, in their thesis, she could have known about the abuses and did nothing to prevent them.
The jury, however, was prevented from seeing an image of the tree carved with the boyfriend’s confession during the trial, as the topic was considered a rumor.
Jurors were also unable to listen to a recording of the lead detective in the investigation saying that he doubted the woman had committed the crime. In the recording, obtained by the BBC, the officer admits that his team did not have enough evidence to accuse Hogue of “failing to protect” his son from the crime of murder.
Hogue’s lawyer Andrew Casey told the BBC the family was “incredibly relieved” at the “just sentence”.
“We are heartbroken that this case has made it this far and we are sincerely frustrated that this indictment has made it to court,” he said.
“We are grateful to have Rebecca back with us again soon.”
