Mary Yoder (La Porte County Jail) and Judah Morgan (WXIN screenshot)
A 27-year-old mother in Indiana will likely spend several decades behind bars for her role in torturing and killing her 4-year-old son, who was starved, beaten, bound with duct tape, and kept in a dark basement before he died last year.
Mary Yoder pleaded guilty Friday to one count of neglect resulting in the death of a dependent and one count of domestic battery to a child, both felonies, in the brutal death of young Judah Morgan, court records reviewed by Law&Crime show.
Yoder admitted to abusing Judah and at least one of her other children, but she also failed to intervene or contact authorities when her husband, 30-year-old Alan Morgan, regularly subjected the child to torturous punishments. Morgan was sentenced to 70 years in prison in December 2022 after pleading to multiple felonies, including murder, in Judah’s death.
In exchange for Yoder pleading guilty, prosecutors dropped additional charges of neglect of a dependent, one of which involved cruel confinement. She had been scheduled to go to trial on Sept. 25.
As part of Yoder’s plea agreement, she admitted that she was aware of the abuse Judah was being subjected to and that the abuse ultimately caused his death, according to a report from the Times of Northwest Indiana.
As Law&Crime previously reported, authorities responding to a 911 call at Yoder and Morgan’s rural home at about 3 a.m. on Oct. 11, 2021, discovered Judah’s bruised and bloodied naked body wrapped in a blanket inside a bedroom. Yoder placed the call and told the dispatcher that Morgan had gotten angry and hurt Judah.
Prosecutors at Morgan’s trial last year presented evidence showing that Judah was routinely physically and emotionally abused by his parents. The father regularly beat and punished his son to the point of torture, locking him up in the family’s dark basement, naked, for days at a time over toilet training issues, and withholding food and water from the child. Morgan would also regularly duct tape Judah’s mouth.
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Surveillance footage from inside of the home showed Morgan on Oct. 7, 2021, punching Judah at least 13 times then picking him up by his neck, dropping him on the floor, and leaving him in the basement without furniture, The Associated Press reported. Video also reportedly showed Morgan punching Judah at least 15 times on Oct. 8.
Judah died from blunt force trauma to the head which caused “massive” bleeding on his brain, an autopsy determined.
“(The child’s injuries) rank up there with one of the worst cases of blunt force trauma to the entire body that (the doctor) had ever seen (in his 28-year career),” court records stated, according to a report from Indianapolis Fox affiliate WXIN.
Jacob Koch of the LaPorte County Sheriff’s Office told South Bend CBS and Fox affiliate WSBT-TV after Morgan’s sentencing it was one of the most tragic cases he’s had.
“I feel for the family and everything they’ve gone through this last year,” he said. “Glad justice was served today.”
Yoder is scheduled to appear for her sentencing hearing before LaPorte County Circuit Court Judge Thomas Alevizos on Nov.1. She is facing a maximum sentence of 40 years for the neglect resulting in death charge and up to six years on the domestic battery charge.
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