By forcing a 5-year-old girl to drink unnecessary amounts of fluids until she died, a Tennessee couple faces charges for murder.
Surgoinsville residents, Randall Lee Vaughn and Mary Lavonne Vaughn, punished Alexa Linboom to consume absurd amounts of water and grape soda after taking one or two sodas from her stepmother, Mary.
Alexa was the daughter of Randall Lee Vaughn, 41, and stepdaughter of Mary Lavonne Vaughn, 58.
"She was allegedly force-fed so much liquid that it caused the sodium level in her body to go down and caused her brain to swell,” said District Attorney Berkley Bell, according to cnn.com
By drinking two liters of fluid in about two hours, she became unresponsive and on New Years Day 2012, the couple was forced to bring her to the hospital. Two days later, she was declared brain dead and taken off of life support.
A two-year investigation ensued and Linboom's death was declared a homicide as a result of acute fluid intoxication. The couple was charged with first degree murder, aggravated child abuse, and two accounts of aggravated child neglect.
The couple is being held on a $500,000 bond and the trial is expected to begin in October.
Five other children who were living with the Vaughn's have since then been placed in foster care, according to independent.co.uk.com