Elijah Lewis’ mother faces sentencing in connection with the death of a 5-year-old boy

Deputy Attorney General Bethany J. Durand said during that hearing that Dauphinais attacked, starved, isolated and neglected her son in 2020 and 2021 in their shared home in New Hampshire.

“He was tortured,” the prosecutor said. She said that during the autopsy, Elijah’s emaciated body weighed just 19 pounds.

Her boyfriend at the time of Elijah’s death, Joseph Stapf confessed to the murder and was to testify against her, reports The Globe. He received a sentence of 22 to 45 years in prison.

The child was reported missing to Merrimack police on October 14, 2021, sparking an intense search by authorities in at least five states and making national headlines. The search, which began after the boy was reported missing by the New Hampshire Department of Children, Youth and Families, continued for 10 days before Elijah’s body was found.

In late 2021, the Massachusetts Medical Examiner’s Office determined the boy’s death was the result of “abuse and neglect, including facial and scalp injuries, acute fentanyl poisoning, malnutrition and pressure sores,” prosecutors said.

The indictment also alleged that on or about October 14, 2021, when Elijah was reported missing, Dauphinais asked two people to lie to child welfare workers and say that the boy was with them when he was not.

Four months before Elijah’s death, Dauphinais allegedly told a friend that she could no longer control the boy, compared him to serial killers and said that wanted him to “go away.”

According to screenshots of the conversation previously reviewed by The Globe, Dauphinais allegedly complained to a childhood friend via text message that Elijah, the fourth of her six children, had become unusually unruly.

“I call him the next Ted Bundy and (Jeffrey) Dahmer,” Dauphinais wrote. “It’s very sad, but I have no connection with this child.”

“His condition is getting worse,” Dauphinais added.

Elijah’s father, Timothy Lewis, filed the motion trial for unintentional death against the state child protection agency. Likewise the mother Montgomery’s Harmonywhose father was Adam Montgomery convicted in 2019, the fatal beating of a 5-year-old girl in New Hampshire. These cases shed a disturbing light on the state’s child welfare system, which she fought to protect children long before the Covid-19 pandemic broke out.

The plea agreement prohibits Dauphinais from profiting “in any way” from these crimes.

This account uses information from previous Globe reports.

This is a developing story.

John R. Ellement can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him @JREbosglobe.