Oregon couple who chose prayer over medical care sentenced after baby dies

An Oregon City couple who did not call 911 as their newborn stopped eating, struggled to breathe and then died were sentenced Monday to 30 days in jail as part of an agreement that requires them to seek routine medical care for their surviving children.

Blair and Taylor Edwards are members of the Followers of Christ Church, an insular sect that follows a literal translation of the Scriptures, which state that the sick shall be anointed by elders and that faith will heal all. Followers adhere to the idea that death, if it comes, is God’s will.

Child deaths have plagued Followers of Christ members for decades.

Blair, 37, and Taylor, 32, Edwards each pleaded guilty to first-degree criminal mistreatment, a felony. In a statement read in court, they urged church members to get medical treatment for their families if warranted.

They are the fourth set of parents in the church to face prosecution since 2011 when the Oregon Legislature removed spiritual treatment as a defense for all homicide charges.

Hayden Edwards, their fourth child, was born at home on June 24, 2023, and stopped eating two days later.

The infant began to struggle to breathe and turned blue, Senior Deputy District Attorney Rusty Amos told Clackamas County Circuit Judge Michael Wetzel during Monday’s hearing.

His parents did not call for help, Amos said. Other church members arrived, anointing him “with oil and prayers,” he said.

According to Clackamas County Sheriff’s Office reports, Taylor Edwards told investigators that she gave birth at home without complication or medical intervention and that the boy had not been vaccinated.

She said her son seemed healthy until June 24 when his breath was jagged for several hours, the reports say.

Detective Matt Messina noticed an “open bottle of olive oil” on Taylor Edwards’ night stand. Messina noted in his reports that church members use olive oil to anoint the sick or dying.

He said Blair Edwards told him he put some of the oil on his son’s chest to anoint him.

Messina later pressed Blair Edwards on his decision to use oil on his son. Blair Edwards told him only that oil is used by church members “for a lot of reasons,” according to the sheriff’s reports.

“I used it and that’s all I’m gonna say,” he told the detective.

Messina wrote that he asked the family if “there would ever be a time they would think a time to call for medical services.” Blair Edwards declined to respond, according to the detective’s reports.

Messina said he found it strange that Blair and Taylor Edwards and their family members denied knowing about a previous high-profile child death tied to the church.

Church members Sarah and Travis Mitchell were sentenced to prison after the 2017 death of their infant, Ginnifer.

Ginnifer died from complications of premature birth. She suffered from acute respiratory distress syndrome, the state medical examiner found. The couple acknowledged that they failed to provide medical care for their daughter.

Yet, the Messina wrote that when he was talking to Blair and Taylor Edwards in their home, “no one in the room seemed to know what I was talking about.”

At one point in the investigation, Messina wrote he worried church members were engaged in a “concerted effort to be deceitful” to investigators.

Betsie Cunningham, a church member who lives in Beavercreek and served as a midwife at the birth, told another sheriff’s detective, Chelsea Piper, that Hayden’s birth was “normal” and that she had helped deliver Taylor Edwards’ other children. She told Piper that she kept no medical logs or notes from her role as a midwife.

“Betsie kept answering our questions in a fairly vague way, without specifics given,” Piper wrote.

A second church member, Gayle Beagley of Oregon City, also attended the birth in a midwife role, according to the investigative reports. Detectives noted that Blair and Taylor Edwards said they didn’t have her phone number.

“I found this hard to believe” given that the couple would have needed the phone number “when it was time to give birth to Hayden,” sheriff’s Detective Matt Lysaght wrote.

When Messina followed up with Beagley, she said that there was nothing unusual about Hayden’s birth.

“There’s really nothing to tell,” she told Messina.

The prosecutor said the medical examiner ruled Hayden died from hyperbilirubinemia, an excessive amount of bilirubin in the blood, which leads to jaundice.

Amos said the medical examiner also said that she could not say “with medical and scientific certainty” that medical intervention would have saved the boy.

Untreated jaundice can lead to a potentially fatal condition known as kernicterus, a form of brain damage. The condition is rare in the U.S., Amos said.

He told the judge that even though “the statistics suggest strongly that there was a very, very high probability that by taking Hayden to the doctor, he could have survived,” prosecutors worried they could not prove the couple’s failure to call for medical help led to their son’s death.

The child, he said, “was surrounded in a bedroom by people who loved him very much, but it’s those same people who sat there for over five hours and refused to do anything to help that young child, that helped that young baby. That is why they’re here. They did nothing to save that child.”

Amos showed a photograph of Hayden on the overhead screen in the courtroom as he spoke.

In the photo, the boy’s eyes were closed and his arms were raised above his head, his fists closed. He wore a white onesie. His parents, seated behind their attorneys, looked away.

Amos directed his remarks toward the broader congregation, whose members filled half the public gallery, warning that “prosecutions will continue as kids continue to be harmed.”

He mentioned his boss, District Attorney John Wentworth, saying Wentworth “wants everybody in this courtroom, everybody within this community, to understand that Oregon law is extremely clear that parents are required to protect their children, period.”

“We will continue to prosecute members of this church or any other person who fails to seek necessary medical treatment for a child,” Amos said.

Under the terms of their agreement with prosecutors, Blair and Taylor Edwards prepared a statement that Blair Edwards read aloud in court.

He said he and his wife “should have reached out for medical care when Hayden went into distress.”

He acknowledged the value of medical care.

“We do understand that medical intervention can be necessary to preserve and enhance life,” he said, reading from the statement. “We accept the need to have our children have the necessary medical care for their well-being and health.”

He said the couple cannot mandate that their fellow church members seek medical care, but he said he and his wife “ask the members of our church to take our loss as motivation and ask you to reach out for medical intervention and care for the physical wellbeing of your children.”

The couple have four children, including one who was born since they were initially charged. Blair Edwards works as a pipefitter; Taylor Edwards does not work outside the home.

Upon their release from jail, the two face five years of probation. The terms include tight controls around their parenting when it comes to ensuring their children receive medical care for both routine and serious concerns.

As the hearing came to a close, Taylor Edwards sought alternative sentencing, which could include home detention. Her husband asked if he could turn himself in later Monday instead of at the end of the hearing. The judge denied both requests.

With their family and fellow church members looking on in silence, the couple stood and placed their hands behind their backs as a Clackamas County sheriff’s deputy placed them in handcuffs and led them through a heavy metal door and out of the building to the county jail.

“Love you guys,” one of the church members called out.

— Noelle Crombie is an enterprise reporter with a focus on criminal justice. Reach her at 503-276-7184 or [email protected].