Jurors convict Missouri mother of poisoning 9-year-old son

CLAYTON, Mo. (AP) - A suburban St. Louis mother has been convicted of poisoning her son with prescription medications and keeping him gravely ill for nearly a year.

Jurors found 36-year-old Rachel Kinsella guilty Thursday of charges of first-degree assault and child endangerment, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports. The state removed the then-9-year-old from her care in early 2015.

Prosecutors told jurors Kinsella sought treatment for Patrick at St. Louis and Kansas City hospitals to get anti-seizure medications from both sites, never telling doctors at either hospital.

The prosecution suggested she could receive inheritance payments from the estate of the boy's late father to care for the child by keeping him sick.

But her attorneys said the presence of various drugs in the boy's system didn't prove she was poisoning him.