An Illinois woman is headed to prison for decades for neglecting and torturing a 7-year-old boy who weighed just 14 pounds when he arrived at the hospital suffering cardiac arrest.
Eulalia Vences, 55, was sentenced to 20 years in prison after she pleaded guilty to aggravated battery with great bodily harm, the Kane County State’s Attorney’s Office said. The investigation began in March 2024 when Vences and the boy’s mother, 33-year-old Natali Cruz-Gemchi, brought their unresponsive child to the emergency room at Saint Joseph Hospital in Elgin, which is in the Chicago area.
Doctors stabilized the boy but found him to be woefully underweight at 14 pounds. His condition was “consistent with severe intentional physical torture, psychological torture and medical neglect,” prosecutors said…