Kaitlyn Rose Laura, 31, has been charged with injury to a child and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon after allegedly falsifying her 3-year-old son’s medical history to force unnecessary surgeries, including the surgical insertion of feeding tubes. The Tarrant County Sheriff’s Office announced the charges following her arrest.
Sheriff Bill Waybourn described the alleged abuse as a “horrific crime,” saying it was “absolutely sickening” to see a person knowingly and intentionally torture a child. This kind of behavior, where parents subject their children to unnecessary medical treatments to gain sympathy and attention, is often referred to as Munchausen by Proxy.
Laura allegedly misled doctors at Cook Children’s Medical Center by claiming her son had stopped eating solid foods at age 2, according to NBC News. She also requested a gastrostomy tube, or g-tube, saying another provider had recommended it, but investigators found no documentation to support this claim.
The hidden camera footage exposed a clear pattern of deception that put a healthy child through multiple unnecessary surgeries
Between April and May, Laura reportedly told doctors her son was refusing solid food, vomiting, and getting worse. Physicians later described her as “very pushy for a g-tube from the beginning” and “extremely resistant” to alternatives. A gastrostomy tube was surgically placed on May 20.
Just ten days after the surgery, the boy was readmitted after Laura reported problems with the device. Hospital staff grew suspicious when they observed the child eating multiple full meals by mouth, which directly contradicted his mother’s claims. He was then moved to a room with a hidden camera.
The footage showed Laura telling staff her son refused all foods, even his favorites, but the recordings captured no such behavior from the child. Once the staff stopped tube feedings, the boy ate all his meals by mouth without difficulty for three consecutive days. He gained weight eating foods like French toast, pancakes, chicken, quesadillas, rice, fries, and pasta.
Laura also repeatedly insisted that the child be medicated despite appearing calm and without medical need, and requested that he be kept in a specialized hospital bed with a tent-like enclosure that could only be opened from the outside. In December, she sought treatment at Children’s Medical Center Dallas and requested surgery to insert a gastrojejunostomy tube, or GJ-tube, which extends from the stomach to the intestine.
She was later also allegedly seeking total parenteral nutrition, or TPN, which is intravenous feeding through a central line, even though authorities said the boy had no medical need for it. A second CPS report was filed in October by a teacher at the boy’s school, who observed none of the medical issues his mother had described, noting his development “far exceeds what his mother describes.”
The teacher also reported that the boy could move without a wheelchair or leg braces and ate normally, reports the New York Post. Despite this, investigators did not remove the child, and Laura withdrew her son from the school shortly after the report was filed. The affidavit also noted that the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services provides its investigators with no policies or mandated training on how to handle medical child abuse cases.
The child was finally removed from the family’s care on February 14. Since entering foster care, he has been eating normally and no longer needs a wheelchair, gait trainer, or leg braces. His foster mother, who is a nurse, reported he “has no problems eating or drinking without any medical aid” and has not needed to use the feeding tube since he was discharged.
Investigators also found several GoFundMe campaigns where Laura asked for money based on her son’s alleged condition. A child abuse pediatrician disputed her claims that her son had experienced “heart codes” and had been diagnosed with cerebral palsy.
Laura’s husband told investigators he was shocked to learn she had requested TPN or hospice care for their son, and explained that Laura, who had worked in home health at a company specializing in patients with feeding tubes, had taken full medical caregiving responsibility for the toddler. Sheriff Waybourn emphasized that the boy has scars on his body from those unnecessary surgeries, and “he will have to be told why they are there for many years to come.”
Published: Apr 6, 2026 08:58 am