Aug 13, 2002 3 min read

CARLISLE, Pa. (AP) – Four-year-old Anthony Quincy Thomas died in a state of malnutrition. Weighing a mere 20 pounds at the time of his death, he looked like a child from a developing nation by eyewitness accounts. At the center of a case against the boy’s parents is whether Anthony’s impoverished state was due to neglect, as prosecutors contend, or possibly a medical condition, as defense lawyers suggest.

Prosecutors say the boy’s state could have been avoided and have charged his parents – Anthony Edward Thomas, 31, and his wife, Shenique, 27 – with endangering his welfare.

“This was a 4-year-old boy who weighed 20 pounds. The doctor indicated he was grossly malnourished,” said Cumberland County District Attorney M.L. “Skip” Ebert. “This didn’t happen yesterday. It takes months to get in this condition.”

Officials were awaiting the results of tests, due in two to six weeks, before announcing the cause of the child’s death. The parents, who remained in Cumberland County prison on $100,000 bail each, are not charged in his death.

A social worker acting on a tip to the state child-abuse hotline discovered Anthony. Police found urine and feces soaked into the carpet and around the bare mattress in the child’s bedroom. The room’s only toy, a stuffed bear, was matted in feces.

Anthony died at Hershey Medical Center after a judge on July 30 ordered the brain-dead child to be removed from life support.

The parents’ lawyers say a medical condition could be responsible.

The boy weighed about as much as an average 9-month-old baby, but his four sisters, aged 3 months to 8 years, all appeared to be in good health. The girls were placed in foster homes.

“They haven’t proven anything so far,” said Ellen Barrie, Shenique Thomas’ public defender. “They have no direct evidence of anybody withholding anything from the child. … They simply have a very messy house and a malnourished child.”

The parents said they had no idea their son was fatally ill.

Anthony Edward Thomas’ defense lawyer, Karl Rominger, said discrepancies in the case suggest the child may not have been as neglected as first thought.

“You come to find out that this was a child who was dressed in nice clothes when the government encountered him, who was walking around,” Rominger said.

The child was malnourished, but Rominger said that could be a result of an inability to absorb calories or some other cause. The hospital found a foamy mass inside the boy’s digestive tract that could be connected to the cause of his death, Rominger said.

The parents had asked doctors about the boy’s condition but were told that he was simply a slow grower, their lawyers said.

Outside the Thomas home on a busy roadway, a collection of toys, flowers, balloons and a sign saying, “God Loves All of His Children” created a silent memorial to the 4-year-old.

The house remains empty.

Neighbors said the Thomases kept to themselves.

“To tell you the truth, I didn’t know they were in the neighborhood,” said Warren Lupfer, a neighbor. “They were loners and the house was shut up all the time. … You’d never see anybody outside.”

The tragic death of an unknown neighbor has left the neighborhood stunned.

“I bawled. I went in my living room and bawled” upon hearing the news, said Shawn Brandt, a bartender at the Trindle Inn, across the street from the Thomas home. “I didn’t even know kids lived there, let alone a little boy.”