“I believe when God finally calls you, you are going to burn in hell from here to eternity,” said the presiding judge to Brian Stewart, a man who purposefully injected his 11-month old infant son with HIV-tainted blood back in 1992.
According to ABC News, Stewart’s reasoning for his terrible act was simple–he never wanted to be responsible for a son with ex Jennifer Jackson.
“Stewart was a phlebotomist — a hospital technician who draws blood — in Columbia, Mo. Prosecutors argued that Stewart, who was never married to Jackson, never wanted to have a child with Jackson and injected BSJ with HIV, thinking that he would die right away and that he would not have to make child support payments. BSJ was not diagnosed with AIDS until 1996.”
Found guilty of first-degree assault, Stewart was sentenced to life in prison and could possibly face murder charges upon his son’s (eventual) passing.
“I’ve just never seen anyone reach that kind of depravity that you can do this to your own son to get back at your girlfriend,” said prosecutor Ross Buehler.
“There is no way to compare the amount of suffering the boy and his parent have gone through and will continue to go through. Mr. Stewart is spending life in prison but he largely got off light. The illness this boy suffers will be with him for the rest of his life and he’ll have a hard go at it.”
However, BSJ beat nearly every odd by surviving the injection and exceeding every expectation the doctors set out for him during his childhood.
Unfortunately, the effects of AIDS is still a daily battle for BSJ. He gets easily winded and cannot participate in “average” activities like sports and took up to nine different medications a day while growing up–through a feeding tube in his abdomen.
He also suffers from ADD, which doctors believe are caused by AIDS-induced brain legions and has social troubles, as well.
BSJ also is faced with the challenge of finding friends (and friends’ families) who are willing to accept his condition. BSJ regularly deals with people who refuse to have anything to do with him, fearing that they will also be infected.
For BSJ, his two sisters, and their mother, life has been hard, but BSJ has grown into a thriving young man.
“It’s tough. But I feel like this is a situation that I’ve been dealt, and I deal with it the best way I can,” she said.
