A mother has admitted to letting her three-year-old son freeze to death outside her house while she slept off a drug binge.
Jamie Basinger pleaded guilty to the involuntary manslaughter of Landyn Melton and he 24-year-old will be expected to serve 36 months of supervised probation and between 19 and 32 months of prison time, after cutting a plea deal with Prosecutors in her home town of Morganton, North Carolina.
Basinger's mother, Brenda Basinger, said it was something her daughter was "going to have to live with this the rest of her life."
“She’s going to have a battle, we all are, she told the Morganton News Herald, adding that she still had unanswered questions about the three-year-old's death.
Landyn was found dead on 15 March after a neighbour called the police when they spotted him laying on the porch.
Assistant District Attorney Michelle Lippert said when he arrived at the scene he knocked so hard on the door "he was surprised he did not break the storm door glass".
He said Basinger's boyfriend, Joshua Steffey, answered the door and went to find Jamie. Both later admitted they smoking meth two days before Landyn's death and marijuana the night before.
Basinger's attorney, Frank Webster, said she had cooperated with the authorities because she wanted answers herself and was grief-stricken at her son's death.
He told the court: “She didn’t understand this. It didn’t make sense to her."
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