A mother from Clermont County was given at least nine years in jail on Friday for killing her 4-year-old daughter. Prosecutors say the girl died from complications from diabetes after being fed mostly Mountain Dew through a baby bottle.
In March, 41-year-old Tamara Banks admitted to murder by accident and got the sentence. According to a state law, the Department of Rehabilitation and Correction can make someone spend more time in prison based on how they behaved while they were there. Banks could get up to 13½ years.
Assistant prosecutor for Clermont County Clay Tharp said, “This is one of the saddest cases I have ever seen.”
Records from the Hamilton County Coroner’s Office show that Karmity Hoeb passed away on January 25, 2022, at the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center.
Karmity was neglected and abused for most of her life, and her parents wouldn’t feed her or get her medical care, according to officials. The girl died of diabetic ketoacidosis, a life-threatening complication of diabetes most often seen in Type 1 diabetics.
Authorities said in a court document that Karmity began to show signs of a “serious medical issue” while she was living with her parents just four days before she died.
Authorities say that the child’s symptoms got worse over the next few days, and Banks didn’t call 911 until the child went blue and stopped breathing.
The child was revived for a short time by first responders. She was then taken to the hospital, where scans showed that she was brain dead. An autopsy showed that Karmity died from a brain injury caused by diabetes.
Prosecutors said Karmity had diabetes but didn’t know it, and that her death could have been avoided with the right care and treatment.
Tharp said, “This child did not have to die.”
Karmity also had a condition that made her teeth fall out because she drank sugary soda through a baby bottle.
Authorities say Banks mixed Karmity’s baby formula with Mountain Dew a lot of the time, even after the child should have been weaned off of bottles, and they couldn’t find any proof that the child had ever been to the doctor.
Tharp said that even though Karmity didn’t get medical care, Banks often filled her own medicines and even had doctors come to her apartment to make sure her medical needs were met.
Prosecutors also said Banks has other grown children who were badly treated while she had care, including a 4-year-old son who went into a coma because he didn’t know he had diabetes.
Even though the boy was getting better, authorities said Banks continued to ignore his medical needs. They said he never took him to the doctor and never showed up to his follow-up appointments.
Judge Victor Haddad of Clermont County Common Pleas said that Banks should have known about the risks of diabetes because her older child had it.
“It’s hard to be a good parent, but everyone should expect at least average parents,” Haddad said at the hearing on Friday. “Not knowing what to do is not an excuse.”
Banks said, though, that she thought she was taking care of Karmity as well as she could.
She told the judge, “I thought I was taking care of her.”
Banks and the child’s father, Christopher Hoeb, 53, were charged with murder, involuntary manslaughter, and putting children in danger last summer.
Hoeb also admitted to manslaughter without consent. In return for their guilty pleas, prosecutors suggested that the other charges be dropped. Hoeb is due in court on June 11 to be sentenced.
