PORT ARTHUR, Texas — A Port Arthur mother has been sentenced to 50 years in prison after being found guilty on two counts of injury to a child for her role in the death of her 4-year-old son with disabilities.
A Jefferson County jury sentenced Tina Louis, 43, to 50 years in prison on each of the two charges. The judge ordered that the sentences run concurrently so that her sentence is effectively for 50 years.
Back in May of 2022 Port Arthur police arrived at a home in the 300 block of Richmond Avenue, there they discovered the severely malnourished body of King Dewey locked in a closet with a padlock. Responding officers say that the scene was hard to even fathom.
At the time of his death, the toddler weighed just 19 pounds according to Justice of the Peace Mark Derouen and had a "skeletal appearance".
Louis is the third person to be sentenced in the death of Dewey. The boy's sister Kirsten Alexia Louis, 24, and Jaylin Lewis, 38, were also taken into into custody and each charged with two counts of injury to a child.
RELATED: Third suspect arrested in connection with death of 4-year-old boy found in Port Arthur home
Family members told police that Dewey had a form of Down syndrome, according to file stories.
Kirsten Louis told police in 2022 that she was Dewey's caregiver and that he had been losing weight, according to a probable cause affidavit in the case.
She told officers that she had reached out to her mother about it but had been told that the weight loss was normal for his condition and that she should feed him milk and vitamins the affidavit said.
Louis told officers that while she thought this wasn't enough to feed him she did not seek further advice and did not seek medical help for the boy because she was afraid that CPS might take him and her two other siblings away from her.