The mother of five-year-old Elijah Lewis, who was found dead in a Massachusetts park after being starved, has pleaded guilty to her son’s murder.
Danielle Dauphinais, 38, admitted to second-degree murder and two counts of witness tampering early today morning at the Hillsborough Superior Court South in Nashua.
Elijah was killed by his mother in October 2022 after she starved him over a prolonged period, with the little boy weighing the same as a watermelon when his body was found, cops said.
His corpse only weighed 19 pounds when measured by officials after his death. A healthy five year-old boy should weight between 34 and 52 pounds, according to CDC figures.
Danielle Dauphinais, 38, admitted to second-degree murder and two counts of witness tampering earlier today at the Hillsborough Superior Court in Nashua
Based on the charges, the killer mother could be jailed for 55 years to life for murder and receive two sentences of up to seven years for witness tampering. Her sentence hearing is scheduled for October 25.
One of the key conditions to Dauphinais’ plea agreement is that she is not allowed to profit off these ‘offenses’, including getting paid to write a book, movie, TV or any other medium on the murder of Lewis.
During the hearing, chilling Facebook and text messages she sent to her boyfriend, Joseph Stapf were also revealed in which she admitted to hitting the child on his head.
‘All this kid does is cry because he’s f****** hungry. He said he wants food and he wants me to stop starving him because it’s not nice,’ Dauphinais wrote.
While another series of messages read: ‘I’m gonna kill this kid Joe, f****** screaming on the top of his lungs for f****** water and woke JoLeeya.
‘Elijah!! I’m gonna kill him and I mean it.’
Perhaps in one of the most surprising texts, she said: ‘I hit him in the head with the shower rod that’s all I did. Just whooped the maggot’s a**’.
The young child had gone missing on October 4, 2022 from the family home in Merrimack, New Hampshire.
His body was found in Ames Nowell State Park in Abington, Massachusetts – just 70 miles from Merrimack – on October 23 by a police dog, 10 days after a search was launched by investigators across five states.
Elijah Lewis was found in Ames Nowell State Park in Abington, Massachusetts – just 70 miles from Merrimack – on October 23, 2022 by a police dog, 10 days after a search was launched by investigators across five states
Prosecutors revealed that Dauphinais and Stapf stuffed Elijah’s body in a container, dug a hole and buried him in the park.
His autopsy report revealed that he had been starved, neglected and physically abused while alive.
Lewis had also suffered facial and scalp injuries, acute fentanyl intoxication, malnourishment and pressure ulcers.
Bethany Durand, the New Hampshire Assistant Attorney General told the court: ‘Between September 27, 2020, and September 21, 2021, Elijah was assaulted, starved, isolated and neglected. He was tortured.’
Other texts revealed the same month he went missing showed Dauphinais complaining about Elijah to a childhood friend in June and calling him ‘the next Ted Bundy and Jeffrey Dahmer’ while saying she ‘wanted him gone.’
Lewis had also suffered facial and scalp injuries, acute fentanyl intoxication, malnourishment and pressure ulcers before he died
During the hearing, chilling Facebook and text messages she sent to her boyfriend, Joseph Stapf were also revealed – where she admitted to hitting the child on his head
His autopsy report revealed that he had been starved, neglected and physically abused
Notorious serial killer and rapist Ted Bundy kidnapped, raped, and murdered several women and underage girls during the 1970s and possibly earlier. He confessed to more than thirty murders he committed across seven states between 1974 and 1978.
Dauphinais also reportedly told her friend that she could not ‘trust’ her son ‘anymore’ as a result of Elijah urinating over his bedding and clothes and playing with his own feces.
She also wrote to her friend: ‘I want him gone. I can’t handle it anymore,’
Ultimately, Dauphinais was arrested in New York City on October 16 – a week before her son’s discovery. She and Stapf were then charged with witness tampering and child endangerment before being extradited back to New Hampshire.
Stapf has already been convicted of manslaughter in connection with the case and remains in prison.
