CONVICTED OF MURDERING HER SON BY POISONING HIM WITH SALT, LACEY SPEARS VOWS TO "48 HOURS" SHE DID NOTHING TO HURT THE 5-YEAR-OLD

In her First Interview, Spears Tells Troy Roberts: "I Didn't Hurt Him - I Didn't Kill Him"

Lacey Spears has been accused, tried and convicted of murdering her 5-year-old son by poisoning him with salt, but in her first-ever interview, Spears tells 48 HOURS correspondent Troy Roberts she didn't do it.

"I didn't hurt him. I didn't kill my son," Spears says in 48 HOURS: "A Mother Accused," to be broadcast Saturday, April 9 (10:00 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network. "I never poisoned him with salt."

Spear's son Garnett died on Jan. 23, 2014, after what she maintains was a lifetime of illness, for which she couldn't find him relief. For years, Spears posted about his ailments on social media, where she maintained a regular update on Garnett's life. All along, doctors struggled to find answers to Garnett's problems. But in what would be Garnett's final hospital visit, something emerged. Doctors found a life threatening level of sodium in his bloodstream, causing his eventual death.

Spears was later charged with murdering her son. Spears and her attorneys maintain she's innocent. Investigators and law enforcement think otherwise.

"I am 100 percent convinced that Lacey Spears is directly responsible for the death of Garnett Spears," says Morgan County (Alabama)
District Attorney's Office investigator Johnny Coker.

Roberts and 48 HOURS investigate the case against Spears, the years leading up to the death of her son and allegations that Spears suffers from Munchausen by proxy, a condition where a parent fakes or induces an illness in their child, through interviews with Spears, her attorney, investigators and others. It's a case that raises issues about child care, the medical system and how warning signs might have been missed along the way that could have saved Garnett.

Spears says her son would not take a bottle and wasn't gaining weight. She maintains doctors couldn't explain what was happening.

"I do not have Munchausen by Proxy," Spears tells 48 HOURS. "I didn't harm him in any way. I seeked help for him diligently because I was his advocate."

Coker, however, says that Spears visited approximately 20 medical facilities with Garnett from the time he was born in 2008 to 2010, often without sharing information from one doctor to the next. Spears moved around, too, going from Alabama, to Florida and then Rockland County, NY in 2012. Garnett would become ill again and hospitalized in 2014 with seizure like symptoms. He died in a New York Hospital.

During Garnett's final hospital visit in 2014, she says doctors "screwed up and neglected to take care" of her son. Spears was charged with murder and stood trial in Westchester County, New York.

"I lost my 5-year-old son. He's not here today. I loved every part of who he was. And I'm very saddened that I'll never get to watch him grow up," Spears says.

"How did your son die," Roberts asks.

"His death certificate says homicide," Spears says.

If not Spears, as the jury found, then who killed Garnett Spears?

48 HOURS: "A Mother Accused" is produced by Ruth Chenetz. Kathleen O'Connell is the senior development producer; Doug Longhini is the development producer; Alicia Tejada is the field producer; Anthony Batson is the senior broadcast producer; and Susan Zirinsky is the senior executive producer.

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