The Florida mother who allegedly allowed her boyfriend to repeatedly beat her 5-year-old son has learned her prison sentence.
The case began in 2023, when Taylor Schaefer reported seeing her boyfriend, Shawn Stone, allegedly striking the child on a home surveillance video while she was away.
The footage allegedly showed Stone punching the 5-year-old and striking him with a mop after he wet his bed, according to the 7th Judicial Circuit State Attorney’s Office.
A Florida mother received her prison sentence after authorities uncovered a “brutal pattern” of violence against her son
Image credits: Volusia Sheriff’s Office
Trigger warning: this article contains graphic details that may be distressing to some.
Investigators determined that the boy had been the victim of violent behavior and neglect for a prolonged period of time and that his mother, Schaefer, had been present in the home while such incidents occurred.
Instead of intervening, Schaefer, who lived with two other children, reportedly failed to seek medical care for her son, despite him being visibly injured and limping in her presence.
When he was finally examined by a medical professional, the boy was found to have 46 visible injuries, including a fractured skull and a lacerated lip.
Image credits: Volusia Sheriff’s Office
Text messages between the couple also showed that the mother participated in the violence and neglect, authorities said.
“A mother’s sacred duty is to love and protect her children — not to viciously beat, t*rture and demean them,” said State Attorney R.J. Larizza of the 7th Judicial Circuit in a press release.
“It is a brutal reality that some mothers commit shamefully violent and cruel acts upon their children.”
Officials described disturbing punishments in the home, including binding the child’s hands and locking him in a dog cage
Footage from the victim’s home also showed that he was repeatedly left with his hands bound behind his back for hours at a time. According to authorities, the young boy was also locked inside a dog cage and punished via deprivation of food.
The 5-year-old was “starved” and sometimes would only be fed oatmeal, the sheriff said.
It has now been revealed that during a hearing on Friday (March 6), the mother from DeLand, Florida, was sentenced to 60 years in prison.
Image credits: WESH 2 News
Schaefer had entered no contest pleas last year to 25 felony charges, which included multiple counts of aggravated child ab*se, k*dnapping, and tampering with a witness.
Another child in the home, aged 9, was reportedly forced to drink boiling water, sprayed with boiling water, and beaten with household objects, according to the sheriff’s office.
The third victim in the house, aged 7, did not receive proper nutrition or care for a serious medical condition.
Volusia Sheriff Mike Chitwood said he hopes Taylor Schaefer and Shawn Stone both “rot in their jail cells”
Image credits: Volusia Sheriff’s Office
Referring to the violent scenes captured in the home surveillance footage, Volusia Sheriff Mike Chitwood said he is “speechless.”
“36 years in policing and I’m speechless when I watch those videos… Detectives told me this is going to be one of the worst things we’ve ever seen because those cameras captured everything.
“You watch it, and it churns your stomach to think, ‘How could you do this?’”
He said he hopes that both Schaefer and her boyfriend, Stone, “rot in their jail cells,” adding they “stole those kids’ futures.”
What investigators called a “brutal pattern” of violence toward the children began in May 2023 when Schaefer called law enforcement about a bad “gut feeling” she had about her 32-year-old boyfriend.
She said she checked a video of her living room on her phone and saw Stone standing over her 5-year-old child, who was lying in his bed, and punching the boy in the head.
The violent pattern came to light in 2023 after Schaefer reported a “gut feeling” and checked her home camera
Image credits: georgia_police_fire_pictures/Instagram
The child was able to get off the bed but, as soon as he did, Stone began to kick him.
The mother could hear her son begging for Stone to stop. However, her boyfriend then grabbed a mop and began striking him again.
Schaefer told investigators that she saw Stone hitting her son so hard that the head of the mop broke off.
Image credits: WESH 2 News
She also said he had a history of substance dependence issues but had been clean for a while.
“You see in (the video) where the little guy has a leg injury, he can’t stand up straight, you can see the burn mark on his back, and this sc*mbag kicks him in the leg, knocks him to the ground, makes him stand up, and then punches him to the face,” Chitwood described.
The case against Shawn Stone is still pending
Image credits: WESH 2 News
When interviewed by authorities, Stone said he became angry when he realized that Schaefer’s son had urinated in his bed. He admitted to slapping the boy in the mouth but denied ever striking the child with the mop.
The case against Stone, who was arrested in May 2023 and is facing nearly two dozen charges, is still pending.
The suspect had reportedly been arrested multiple times since 2010, with charges including armed burglary, possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, grand theft, and defrauding a pawn shop.
People expressed horror at the case and commented on Schaefer’s prison sentence
