N.J. Foster Mom Who Starved Sons Sentenced

[RedEarth]

CAMDEN, N.J. (AP) - Bruce Jackson walked into court Friday with a swagger, 15 inches taller and nearly 100 pounds heavier than the 45-pound teenager found foraging through a trash can for food less than two and a half years ago.

With anger in his still high-pitched voice, the 21-year-old took the stand to confront the woman he and his three adoptive brothers say went for years denying them not just food, but the chance to grow up like normal kids.

"You were mean to me for my whole life," Jackson told his adoptive mother, Vanessa Jackson, before she was sentenced to seven years in prison for child endangerment. "You took my childhood. I'm so disappointed I will never get that back."

It was the first time Bruce Jackson and his younger brothers had appeared in public since their ordeal became national news in October 2003. All four are thin, but nothing like the gaunt figures investigators found after a neighbor spotted Bruce rummaging through the garbage.

They told the judge about childhoods Vanessa Jackson wrecked by not taking them to a doctor, serving them only water for dinner sometimes, not letting them play outside and even not letting them bathe.

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20060211/D8FMJ8D81.html

[Nay]

1. Personally, I think she should be given a life sentence. People like

this are less than human.