Tennessee Couple Charged in Death of 5-Year-Old Force-Fed 2.4 Liters of Liquid

A Tennessee couple was charged with the murder of five-year-old Alexa Linboom — forced, as punishment for drinking her stepmother's grape sodas, to drink approximately 2.4 liters of grape soda and water in one to two hours.

The little girl vomited, urinated on herself, and began clenching and posturing — signs of severe brain damage. Her sodium levels crashed below normal, her brain swelled and herniated, and she was dead two days later. The cause: acute fluid/water intoxication. She was taken to the hospital only hours after the punishment began.

It happened on January 1, 2012, in Surgoinsville, Tennessee. The investigation took two years. In February 2014, Randall Lee Vaughn, 41, Alexa's biological father, and his wife Mary Lavonne Vaughn, 58, her stepmother, were each charged with first-degree murder, two counts of aggravated child neglect, and aggravated child abuse. Five other children in the home were placed in foster care. (CNN)

Both later pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and aggravated child neglect and were sentenced to 35 years in prison.

Some readers asked whether there should be a license required for childbirth. The question deserves a serious answer: punishing a child this way was not a mistake born of any particular income bracket — it was cruelty, and the children who might have testified were spared a trial only by the plea deal. What protects children isn't a license; it's neighbors, teachers, and relatives who speak up, and systems that act fast when they do.