Jurors convicted Elizabeth Dubois after prosecutors said she ignored years of pleas for care as her son’s treatable cancer spread.

LAPEER, Mich. — A Michigan judge sentenced Elizabeth Dubois to life in prison without parole after a jury found that she denied medical care to her teenage son for years as he suffered from a rare cancer that prosecutors said could have been treated sooner.

Monday’s sentence capped a case that turned medical neglect into a murder conviction. Dubois, 43, was convicted in January of felony murder and first-degree child abuse in the 2019 death of her son, Austin Raymond. Prosecutors said Raymond repeatedly asked for help as his symptoms worsened, while relatives, child welfare workers and doctors all crossed his path before he died at 19. The immediate consequence now is fixed: the murder conviction carried a mandatory life term.

The punishment came years after the illness first showed itself. Court records say Austin noticed something wrong with his throat in July 2016, when he was 15. By September, he had more trouble eating and speaking. By November, he could no longer eat solid food. At one point, he later testified, he was living mostly on Ramen noodles and Mountain Dew. He said he told his mother again and again that he could not eat and was having trouble breathing. Instead of taking him to a doctor, Austin testified, Dubois told him he “was fine,” blamed allergies and said she did not want to waste gas. His weight dropped sharply, and he estimated that by late 2016 he was about 86 pounds at 5-foot-9.

By then, other adults had started to see what was happening. A Child Protective Services investigator opened an inquiry after Austin’s condition became impossible to miss, according to accounts summarized in the case and later reporting from local media. Prosecutors said the investigator told Dubois to get care for her son. Relatives and Austin’s stepfather eventually helped bring him to appointments, where doctors urged follow-up treatment with specialists. Austin was later diagnosed with chordoma, a rare malignant bone cancer. Court filings identified his cause of death in May 2019 as nasopharyngeal chordoma and dysphagia, both complications from the disease. Prosecutors said the crucial fact was not only that he was sick, but that his sickness was visible, prolonged and repeatedly described to the person responsible for getting him help.

The legal path was unusually long. Dubois was first charged with child abuse, and Austin himself testified at a preliminary examination before his death. After he died on May 20, 2019, prosecutors moved to add murder charges. The dispute over whether they could do that reached the Michigan Court of Appeals, which in 2022 reversed a lower court ruling and allowed the prosecution to pursue felony murder. The appellate opinion laid out the core allegations in stark detail: repeated requests for care, obvious deterioration and no meaningful medical response from Dubois. In January 2026, a jury found her guilty. On March 23, Judge Michael Nolan denied a defense request to set aside that verdict and imposed life without parole on the murder count, plus 15 to 25 years on the child abuse count to run at the same time.

In court and in public reporting, the case has rested on the contrast between what Austin said and what his mother did. Lapeer County Prosecutor John Miller described the neglect as intentional and egregious, saying Dubois offered shifting explanations over time, including money and transportation problems. But the prosecution’s broader theme was that the barriers did not explain years of inaction while Austin’s body changed in front of people who knew him. By the time he died, local reporting said, he weighed 83 pounds. The defense asked the judge to overturn the verdict, but Nolan refused. Dubois still has the normal post-conviction route to appeal, yet the central factual finding now stands: jurors concluded that the failure to seek timely care was criminal, not merely negligent.

For now, the case now moves from trial court drama to the slower grind of appellate review, unless new motions alter the timeline. For now, Dubois remains sentenced to life without parole, and the record of Austin Raymond’s illness remains at the center of a prosecution that argued his death followed years of ignored warnings.

Author note: Last updated April 15, 2026.