Mom Charged in Autistic Son's Death Not a 'Monster'
July 8, 2009 — -- The mother accused of withholding cancer treatment from her now-dead 9-year-old son broke her silence for the first time since she pleaded not guilty to charges of attempted murder earlier this week.
"I'm definitely not a monster," Kristen LaBrie said in an exclusive interview with ABC News' Boston affiliate NewsCenter 5.
"The people that love me and care about me, they know," LaBrie said in the interview. "I don't think that cases are tried in the court of public opinion. The people that don't know me are the ones that are saying these brutal, vicious things."
Referring to her son Jeremy's battle with cancer, LeBrie said, "We fought together, me and Jeremy."
When asked if she had done everything possible to save her son's life, LaBrie declined to comment.
"I'm not going to answer that question," she said. "I think my story will come out at trial."
LaBrie appeared in a Salem Superior Court in Boston Monday for her arraignment, during which she said nothing other than "not guilty" when arraigned on teh charges.
She was ordered held on $15,000 cash bail on attempted murder, child endangerment and other charges.
The boy's father, Eric Fraser, said he did not know of any religious beliefs or any other reason why his ex-wife would withhold treatment.
"I have no idea," Fraser said before LaBrie's arraignment.
Fraser was unable to be reached by ABCNews.com.
LaBrie shook her head as Assistant District Attorney Kate MacDougall said she repeatedly failed to fill prescriptions for her son and deceived his doctors into believing she was giving him the medications he needed to save his life. The boy died in March.
As a young child, Jeremy Fraser had been diagnosed with a serious form of autism.
In October 2006, he was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, but doctors gave him an 85 percent to 90 percent chance of recovery, MacDougall said. The boy was given large doses of chemotherapy in the hospital and his cancer went into remission.
