Lacey Spears
Lacey Spears, 28, is seen in an undated photo from the Westchester County District Attorney's Office. Spears, a single mother in New York state who documented the medical struggles of her 5-year-old son on social media, has been found guilty of murdering him by putting a toxic dose of sodium in his feeding tube. Reuters

Lacey Spears, the New York mother who chronicled her son's life as a "mommy blogger," was found guilty of second-degree murder Monday for poisoning the boy with lethal doses of salt. A Westchester County jury convicted Spears, 27, after two days of deliberation following a monthlong trial, according to the Journal News.

Garnett Spears died at age 5 last year from soaring sodium levels described as metabolically impossible by medical officials. She faces life in prison for her son’s “tortured death,” according to the New York Post. “Throughout his five years, Garnett Spears was forced to suffer through repeated hospitalizations, unneeded surgical procedures and ultimately poisoning with salt, all at the hands of the one person who should have been his ultimate protector: his mother,” said District Attorney Janet DiFiore in a press release.

Spears has denied that she was behind her son's death. “It is still a mystery as to what caused Garnett’s death,” her lawyer, Stephen Riebling, said in court Monday. He said he planned to appeal the case. Spears allegedly showed little emotion as the verdict was read and her father and sister embraced in court. She reportedly used a feeding tube to force salt into Garnett's stomach, which led to a swollen brain and seizures.

Spears wrote about her son on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and a personal blog. She said he had various health problems that kept him from eating food or maintaining a healthy weight. A friend of Spears told jurors, however, that after Garnett died, Spears asked her “to go to her house and get a feeding bag in the middle of the room and throw it away and not tell anybody.” He died at Maria Fareri Children’s Hospital in Valhalla on Jan. 23, 2014, four days after he was admitted.

"Although her son was incredibly special, he was not sick – he was not sick until his mother made him sick," prosecutor Doreen Lloyd said in her opening statement, according to People magazine.

Spears is scheduled to return to court April 8 for her sentencing.

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