Mother who beat and starved her 5-year-old son to death sentenced to over 50 years in prison

Danielle Dauphinais attends her sentencing hearing at Hillsborough County Superior Court South in Nashua, N.H., on Friday, Oct. 25, 2024. (David Lane/Union Leader via AP, Pool)

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CONCORD, N.H. -- A New Hampshire woman was sentenced Friday to 53 years to life in prison in the death of her five-year-old son, who was beaten, starved and exposed to drugs before his 19-pound body was found buried in a Massachusetts park in 2021.

“I'm so sorry Elijah that I failed you as your mother,” Danielle Dauphinais said in court, reading a letter that recounted her life as an abused and abandoned child. She broke down, crying, and one of her attorneys finished reading it.

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Dauphinais, 38, was facing a trial in Nashua but pleaded guilty last month to second-degree murder and other charges in the death of her son Elijah Lewis in an agreement with prosecutors.

Prosecutors had asked for a 55-year sentence. The defense asked for 35 years, the minimum term. Dauphinais also received three to seven additional years on lesser offenses.

Elijah’s autopsy showed he suffered facial and scalp injuries, acute fentanyl intoxication, malnourishment and pressure ulcers.

Superior Court Justice Charles Temple holds a photograph of Elijah Lewis as he explains his sentence at the hearing for Danielle Dauphinais at Hillsborough County Superior Court South in Nashua, N.H., on Friday, Oct. 25, 2024. (David Lane/Union Leader via AP, Pool)

Prosecutors said Elijah was tortured and neglected. He was confined for long periods of time in a bathroom tub, often naked, and monitored via video. In the end, he couldn't stand, they said, showing photos of him over a 16-month period getting progressively thinner. One of his eyes was shut in the last photo.

Dauphinais was divorced from Elijah's father, who had been caring for the boy in Arizona. He brought Elijah to her in New Hampshire in May 2020. Her lawyers said the child had “severe psychiatric issues” and neither parent got him an evaluation. But Judge Charles Temple said that expletive-ridden, hateful texts she sent her boyfriend about her son and her actions were damning.

“You knew exactly what you were doing to Elijah. You were killing him, hour by hour, day by day, month by month," he said.

Dauphinais’ boyfriend, Joseph Stapf, pleaded guilty to manslaughter, second-degree assault, falsifying physical evidence and witness tampering in 2022 in connection with the boy’s death. He was sentenced to 22 to 45 years in prison.

Prosecutors read a series of texts between Stapf and Dauphinais that expressed hostility toward Elijah and frustration if he didn’t behave according to their wishes.

“He said he wants food and he wants me to stop starving him because it’s not nice,” one said. Another message read, “I’m gonna kill him and I mean it,” and another said, “I hit him with the shower rod that’s all I did.”

Stapf had texted Dauphinais to give Elijah more food to “fatten him up.”

Defense attorney Benjamin Faulkner said Dauphinais' texts were sent out of desperation because Elijah showed aggressive behavior that she was unable to manage while as she was taking care of another child. She also was pregnant and abusing fentanyl and heroin. Dauphinais said her ex-husband wouldn't provide his insurance information for her to seek help.

Prosecutors said she shifted blame and responsibility to the father and others.

“She did nothing to help Elijah,” prosecutor Bethany Durand said.

Elijah lived with Dauphinais, Stapf, and the two-year-old daughter she had with Stapf in the basement of a home where Stapf's mother also lived.

By that fall, Elijah's father, Timothy Lewis, became concerned that Elijah wasn’t getting proper medical care and contacted the state Division for Children, Youth and Families. Elijah had developmental challenges and a difficult behavior pattern that worsened in New Hampshire, Lewis said in a wrongful death lawsuit filed earlier this year against Dauphinais, Stapf, Stapf’s mother, and the child services agency.

Lisa Chasse of Nashua, N.H., wears a sweatshirt with a photo of Elijah Lewis at the sentencing hearing for Danielle Dauphinais at Hillsborough County Superior Court South in Nashua, N.H., on Friday, Oct. 25, 2024. (David Lane/Union Leader via AP, Pool)

Faulkner said Lewis told the child services agency that he couldn't take Elijah back because he was concerned for the safety of other children living in his home. The pressure was put on Dauphinais, “who didn't have the ability to deal with it," Faulkner said.

A separate judge on Friday granted the state agency a partial dismissal in the case. A lawyer for Stapf's mother denied allegations in a court filing. No attorneys are listed for Stapf and Dauphinais in the lawsuit.

Elijah weighed 32 pounds (14.5 kilograms) and had bruises on his face, eye and arm at a November 2020 doctor visit, prosecutors said. Dauphinais later told the agency that her son was sent to California to live with Dauphinais’ sister, a custody arrangement the father had agreed to, but Dauphinais didn’t follow through, prosecutors said.

By October 2021, Dauphinais had given birth to a boy at home, prosecutors said. Stapf brought the infant to a hospital with the intent to leave him there. The hospital found evidence of drugs in the baby and contacted the child services agency, which opened an investigation. The agency could find no signs of Elijah.

Dauphinais said her son was with her sister, and then a man she described as her brother but turned out to be a friend. Both the sister and friend told investigators that Dauphinais had contacted them and asked them to lie about Elijah’s whereabouts.

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Prosecutors believe Elijah died in September 2021 and the couple put his body in a container and brought him to the Massachusetts park, where Stapf dug a hole and buried him, prosecutors said.

When Elijah was still missing, Stapf and Dauphinais were arrested in New York. Days after their arrest, Elijah’s remains were found.

Prosecutors said that when Elijah was found, he was three feet (91 centimetres) tall and weighed 19 pounds (8.6 kilograms), while an average five-year-old boy would be about 3.6 feet (1.1 metre) tall and closer to 40 pounds (18 kilograms).

Lewis addressed the court via phone on Friday, saying he could never forgive Dauphinais for her actions and wished she would be haunted by the death of their son. Faulkner said she is.