The 38-year-old mother, who killed and starved her little son with assistance from her boyfriend before dumping his body in a Massachusetts state park, will probably serve the remainder of her life in prison.
According to WMUR-TV On Thursday, September 26, Danielle Dauphinais entered a guilty plea to second-degree murder in connection with the death of Elijah Lewis, age 5. As part of the plea agreement, she could spend 55 years to life in jail.
In September 2022, Joseph Stapf, her boyfriend, entered a guilty plea to charges of manslaughter, second-degree assault, fabricating tangible evidence, and interfering with a witness. He has been incarcerated for 22 to 45 years.
Nearly three years have passed since the Merrimack Police Department received a missing person’s report on October 14, 2021, from the New Hampshire Division for Children, Youth, and Families (DCYF). This is when Dauphinais entered his plea.
But Lewis had vanished from sight in April 2021. His remains were found in a park near Abingdon, Massachusetts, approximately two weeks later.
In November 2022, the Attorney General’s Office of New Hampshire announced that an autopsy had revealed Lewis’s cause of death to be “violence and neglect,” encompassing facial and scalp injuries, acute fentanyl intoxication, malnourishment, and pressure ulcers.
It was determined that he was killed.
In April 2022, Dauphinais was accused on three counts of witness tampering, first-degree murder, and second-degree murder.
Prosecutors claimed Dauphinais “starved” and “tortured” her infant son and did nothing while he was dying, according to MassLive.com.
It was stated that Dauphinais and Stapf texted each other about Lewis’ mistreatment. It was alleged in one of these texts that “He wants me to stop starving him because it’s not nice.”
Texting Stapf, Dauphinais said, “I’m going to kill this kid, Joe.” She called her son a “f–king freak” and declared that she “couldn’t stand him.”
Between September 21 and September 24, 2021, Dauphinais passed away. She informed Stapf that she “can breathe and be free,” and she continued, “I was a prisoner for so long, baby.” It was a terrible experience.”
After transporting the boy’s body to Massachusetts in a garbage bag, Stapf and Dauphinais buried him.
When he passed away, he weighed 19 pounds, which is much less than a healthy youngster his age would have.
According to the New Hampshire Union Leader, Timothy Lewis, the father of Lewis, filed a lawsuit against the DCYF’s parent organization, the New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services, in May. ”
In New Hampshire, the Division for Children, Youth, and Families possesses a duty to take necessary action to prevent abuse or neglect of children,” according to the lawyer for Timothy Lewis.
We want to demonstrate that, had DCYF carried out a reasonable assessment for child abuse or neglect, it could have and ought to have spared this young boy’s suffering.”
It was reported that Elijah Lewis was residing in Arizona with his father before moving to New Hampshire in 2020 with Dauphinais.
She attempted to return Lewis to Arizona due to his alleged behavioral problems, calling him “unsanitary, threatening, and dangerous to himself and others.”
Read Also: Armed Attack in Arizona: Student Stabbed Twice During Class
Elijah Lewis allegedly “acts like he’s possessed sometimes” and created “chaos” at home, according to Dauphinais. “He’s absolutely nuts, he’s absolutely crazy,” she allegedly said to Timothy Lewis.
Timothy Lewis says he notified DCYF about the situation even though he couldn’t afford to fly to New Hampshire to pick up his son. It has been stated that a nurse at a November 2020 doctor’s checkup saw evidence of abuse on the boy’s body. He was told by a DCYF case officer that the next day, he could return home with his mother.
In October, Dauphinais will be given a sentence.
Leave a Reply