US couple who prayed for children in lieu of medicine sent to prison for 2nd child’s death
PHILADELPHIA – A couple who believe in faith-healing have been sentenced to 3 1/2 to seven years in prison in the death of a second child who died without seeing a doctor.
Philadelphia Common Pleas Judge Benjamin Lerner told Herbert and Catherine Schaible on Wednesday that it wasn’t 8-month-old Brandon’s time to die.
He said: “You’ve killed two of your children … not God, not your church, not religious devotion — you.”
The Schaibles pleaded no contest. They are third-generation members of a small Pentacostal community, the First Century Gospel Church in northeast Philadelphia.
Both expressed remorse and apologized for violating a court order to seek medical care for their children following the 2009 death of a 2-year-old son of untreated pneumonia.
Their six surviving minor children are now in foster care.
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