Uniontown mother sentenced to up to 40 years in death of son
A Uniontown mother was sentenced to up to the maximum penalty of up to 40 years behind bars Thursday for killing her infant son in 2008.
Before she was sentenced, Lori Beth Workman, 27, told Fayette County President Judge Gerald R. Solomon that she was a good mother who wouldn’t hurt her child.
Solomon was unmoved by her declaration, and told her that all of his sympathy was for her son, Homer Workman, who died on Sept. 22, 2008, just shy of 4 months old. The infant died of repeated blunt force injuries to his head, according to medical testimony.
“You were blessed with a miracle,” Solomon told Workman. “As a mother, you should have loved and nurtured him. Instead, from the evidence, you brutalized him.”
Workman told police and a child welfare worker that she twice used a piece of the infant’s crib rail to hit him in the head about one month before his death. When she testified at trial, she denied harming the child. The right side of the infant’s brain was markedly smaller than the left side because of repeated head injuries, according to testimony.
After 11 years as a prosecutor, and the last 23 as a judge, Solomon said he still struggles to understand such a “horrific and shocking crime.”
“After all these years, I am still unable to find any reason … that would give me insight into why you did what you did to this innocent child,” he said.
The jurist said his heart is full of sympathy, but all of it for Homer Workman.
“While this court cannot undo what you have done … we certainly can remove you from society, thereby removing you from all contact with your other children,” Solomon said.
Lori Workman and her husband, Eric Workman Sr., have two other sons.
Assistant Public Defender Mary Campbell Spegar, one of two attorneys who represented Lori Workman at trial, asked Solomon to be lenient, nothing that Workman has no prior record.
Workman’s father, Alan Matthews, said his daughter would help anyone, and was a “kind and giving person.”
“She’d never hurt anyone or anything, and never has,” he said.
District Attorney Jack R. Heneks Jr. asked Solomon to sentence Workman to the maximum penalty of 20 to 40 years in prison for third-degree murder.
“She shows and has shown a lack of remorse in her actions in causing her own child’s death,” Heneks said. “Homer Workman had a long life ahead of him, he had everything to hope and wish for.”
“Like a cancer that can be excised from an otherwise healthy body, it is apparent you should be excised from this community,” Solomon said.
Because she showed no mercy to her son, Solomon said he would show her no mercy, and imposed the maximum sentence of 20 to 40 years for third-degree murder. He also sentenced her to one to two years in prison for endangering the welfare of children.
Heneks praised the diligent work of Rutter, D’Auria, medical personnel and Assistant District Attorney Linda Cordaro, who tried the case.
“Without their help, cooperation and testimony, this defendant could not be brought to justice as she was today,” Heneks said.