SALEM, Mass. -- The sister of the mother accused of allegedly neglecting to help treat her 8-year-old son's cancer is coming to her defense.
Kristen LaBrie, 36, pleaded not guilty on Monday in Salem District Court on a charge of reckless child endangerment, but LaBrie's sister says that she doesn't think she did anything wrong.
"I think she's done an awesome job with him no matter what's going on now. I don't know what I think that really, really happened. I think that there's a lot lot more to the story," Elizabeth O'Keefe, LaBrie's sister, said.
Doctors at Massachusetts General Hospital say that after her son, Jeremy, was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in 2006, his mother canceled more that a dozen chemotherapy treatments for him and did not give him prescribed medication.
Doctors say that because LaBrie allegedly failed to treat her son, Jeremy now has terminal leukemia and has a 10-percent chance of survival.
O'Keefe says that she does not believe that her sister purposefully harmed her son.
A judge has given Jeremy's father full custody over the boy, and told LaBrie to stay away.
O'Keefe says that she hopes that she can say goodbye
"There's nothing that they can do for him any more, so were just trying to love him to death until his last days," O'Keefe said.
LaBrie also has a 16-year-old son who was taken by the Department of Social Services several years ago. Details on that case have not been made public.
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