Parents Plead Not Guilty in Boy’s Death

A part-time pastor and his wife pleaded not guilty Thursday to charges that they murdered their 5-month-old son by allowing him to starve to death, wasting away to less than his birth weight.

Mark Boesch, 42, and his wife, Janette, 39, of the High Desert community of Apple Valley, were arraigned in a Victorville courtroom and later transferred to a San Bernardino County jail in Rancho Cucamonga, where each was being held on $1-million bail.

The baby “looked like something you’d see out of an Auschwitz death camp,” said Chip Patterson, a spokesman for the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department. “He was just skin and bones. It wasn’t like he went hungry for three days and died. It was systematic malnourishment over his short lifetime.”

The Boesches were charged with one count each of murder and felony child abuse. A preliminary hearing was scheduled for April 18.

The public defender’s office and a private law firm were appointed to represent the couple. Investigators have said that Janette Boesch told them she breast-fed her son and did not provide nutritional supplements despite a doctor’s concern.

Dr. Steven Prenkle, a San Bernardino County deputy medical examiner, listed the death as a homicide caused by “severe malnutrition due to maternal nutritional deprivation.”

Boesch, a janitor, serves as pastor of the Grace Chapel of the Desert Church in Hesperia, according to the Sheriff’s Department. Staff members at other churches in Hesperia said they had not heard of Boesch’s church, nor was it listed in local phone books.

The two have seven other children, ages 2 to 15, all of whom were described by authorities as being in good medical condition. They were taken into protective custody by San Bernardino County Child Protective Services after their parents’ arrest Wednesday.

The mother home-schooled her other children, and the family home appeared well-maintained, Patterson said.

Sheriff’s investigators say Janette Boesch told them she fed only breast milk to her baby, Timothy Donald Boesch. A pediatrician last saw the infant 10 days after he was born, expressed concern that the baby wasn’t gaining weight and asked the mother to bring the child back for a checkup, he told investigators. She never returned, he said.

Homicide investigators said the mother later told them she refused to give her baby nutritional supplements, Patterson said.

The mother said “she thought her breast milk would be adequate nutrition and although she realized the baby was poorly nourished, she did not take the baby for medical care for fear the baby and/or her other children might be removed by Child Protective Services,” according to the coroner’s report.

The baby weighed 7 pounds 12 ounces when he was born June 9. When he died Nov. 8, he weighed 5 pounds, 15 ounces, according to the coroner’s office.

Janette Boesch called paramedics when she found the baby lifeless, and they in turn called sheriff’s investigators, Patterson said. Prosecutors filed the charges after the autopsy was completed.

“The mother stated she had been the sole caretaker of the infant and that her husband had never even changed the baby’s diapers,” according to the autopsy report.

She said that when her husband expressed concern about the infant, she assured him “the baby was gaining weight,” the report said.

Patterson said, “It’s quite distressing. We know the end result and how it happened--that the child was allowed to starve to death. But we don’t know why this was allowed to happen.”

Deputy Dist. Atty. Kay Neshat said Thursday that she would let a jury decide whether to consider first-degree murder or a lesser murder count at trial, and declined to otherwise discuss the case.