Janell Lewis, who was previously charged with felony child neglect, which was later elevated to first-degree murder for the overdose death of her 18-month-old son, was sentenced to 20 years with 15 years to serve in prison on Friday. While she was initially expected to stand trial for murder in January, she pleaded guilty to culpable negligent manslaughter earlier this year.
Lewis’ son, Landon, died after ingesting suboxone in their home and not being rendered medical care by Lewis.
When Lewis, 33, of Columbia was initially charged following her son’s death in March 2022, the investigation was still ongoing. Fifteenth Circuit District Attorney Hal Kittrell and Assistant District Attorney Carpenter Marsalis said in July 2024 that the findings of the autopsy, which ruled the death a homicide, changed the prosecutors’ direction on the case.
“When the grand jury was presented with the completed investigation, they charged her as outlined (with first-degree murder),” Marsalis explained.
“The initial interview led us down one path, but when we completed the (investigation), it answered other questions for us,” Kittrell said.
Although a first-degree murder charge typically means there was pre-meditation for the crime, Marsalis said Lewis is being charged under the felony murder statute. That statute stipulates an individual can be charged with murder if a death occurs during the act of another felony, which in this case was child neglect.
However, Kittrell explained Tuesday morning that cases continue to evolve even after cases are indicted by a grand jury and as they approached trial, they didn’t like the fit of first-degree murder.
“It came down to a situation where first-degree murder requires a deliberate design on her part. In our mind, she would have almost had to force the ingestion by this child of that product. That's not what happened,” Kittrell said. “So we said, ‘Well, she’s just not the mother she should have been.’ It was more negligence, but (the level of negligence) rose to a level of culpable negligent manslaughter. … It was negligence on her part, not keeping up with that child and being aware of that child. (She had) that drug within the vicinity of that child, but we didn’t see it as her deliberately putting that suboxone there to kill that child. But that's what, in fact, happened. That really meets the criteria for manslaughter more than it does murder.”
Assistant District Attorney Lorel Brinkley added Lewis’ actions coupled with her inaction of seeking medical care for her son met the definition of being culpably negligent.
“It really came down to whether medical attention was sought in a timely manner and putting him in danger. So there was a bunch of negligence that came together and put Landon in a position that he lost his life,” she said.
In a separate case involving Lewis, the baby’s father, Lawrence Lambert, was arrested and charged with introduction of contraband into a correctional facility. On June 13, 2022, three months after Landon’s death, Lambert was in circuit court on separate charges when he asked a correctional officer to give Lewis two photos of the baby that were glued together. The officer separated the two photos and found strips of suboxone, the same drug that killed their child, in between the pictures.
