Parents accused of starving four children after 5-year-old died at an extremely low weight, investigators say
Madison Clark
Photo by KATRIN BOLOVTSOVA
A 5-year-old boy in Ascension Parish, Louisiana, weighed just 19 pounds when he died in January 2026, roughly the weight of an average 1-year-old. His parents, Marlon Perilloux, 33, and Raynisa Young, 27, now face negligent homicide and second-degree cruelty to juveniles charges after investigators say they starved the child over a period of years while three siblings lived under the same roof.
The boy’s death, and a strikingly similar case in Baltimore where two parents pleaded guilty to starving their four children, has forced an uncomfortable question back into public view: how do children waste away inside homes that schools and state agencies are supposedly monitoring?
What investigators found in Ascension Parish
Photo by Dan Williams
Deputies with the Ascension Parish Sheriff’s Office responded on January 16 after the boy’s caregivers brought him, unresponsive, to a gas station and called 911. He was pronounced dead shortly after. According to the Sheriff’s Office, the child’s body was so small it fit into a bag designed for infants.
Investigators described the boy as bedridden and largely confined to the home, painting a picture of prolonged isolation rather than a sudden medical emergency. Both Perilloux and Young were arrested and, according to booking records reported by local affiliates, also face drug-related charges. Detectives say both parents acknowledged failing to provide adequate care. Three other children in the household were immediately removed by the Louisiana Department of Children and Family Services.
An autopsy is still pending as of early 2026, and the investigation remains active. Authorities have not ruled out additional charges.
School staff raised alarms before the boy died
The death did not come without warning. A local school had filed multiple complaints with Louisiana’s Department of Children and Family Services about the boy’s siblings, citing their unkempt appearance and poor hygiene, according to an investigative report by WBRZ. Those complaints indicate that teachers and staff recognized something was wrong and tried to alert the state.
What happened after those reports reached DCFS remains unclear. The agency has not publicly detailed whether caseworkers visited the home or what actions, if any, were taken. Louisiana law does not require children to enroll in school until age 7, which may explain why the 5-year-old himself was not in a classroom where staff could have observed his condition directly.
That gap matters. Pediatricians, teachers, and child welfare researchers have long noted that children who are not yet school-age are among the hardest to protect because they have fewer routine contacts with mandatory reporters. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ most recent Child Maltreatment report, children under 5 account for the highest rate of fatalities from abuse and neglect nationally.
The Baltimore case: four children starved, one killed
In February 2026, a Baltimore couple pleaded guilty to charges stemming from a nearly identical pattern of abuse. Bernice Byrd and Gerald Byrd admitted to first-degree child abuse resulting in death and first-degree child abuse for the surviving siblings after their 5-year-old daughter, Zona, died of malnutrition in October 2024, according to the Baltimore Sun.
Baltimore City State’s Attorney Ivan Bates said the couple had starved all four of their children, not just Zona, systematically withholding food and medical attention. The three surviving children were placed in state care. Sentencing for the Byrds has not yet been announced as of March 2026.
The parallels between the two cases are difficult to ignore: a 5-year-old dead from starvation, siblings suffering in the same household, and a timeline that suggests the deprivation lasted months or years before anyone with authority intervened.
Why starvation cases are so hard to catch
Child welfare experts distinguish starvation abuse from neglect driven by poverty. In poverty-related cases, caregivers typically seek help or accept it when offered. In cases like those alleged in Ascension Parish and documented in Baltimore, food is withheld deliberately, often from specific children, while the household otherwise functions well enough to avoid detection.
Dr. Vincent Palusci, a pediatrician and researcher who has studied child maltreatment fatalities, has noted in published work that starvation deaths frequently involve children who are isolated from schools, medical providers, and extended family. The pattern makes these cases uniquely difficult for child protective services to identify through standard intake processes, which rely heavily on reports from people who see the child regularly.
In the Louisiana case, the school’s complaints about the siblings suggest the system was receiving signals. Whether those signals were strong enough, and whether the agency’s response matched the urgency, is now a central question for state officials and the public.
What comes next
In Louisiana, Perilloux and Young remain in custody. The Ascension Parish Sheriff’s Office has said it expects the autopsy results to provide further detail on the cause and duration of the boy’s malnutrition, which could influence whether charges are upgraded. The status of the three removed siblings has not been made public, consistent with state confidentiality rules around children in foster care.
In Baltimore, the Byrd case now moves to sentencing. Bates’ office has signaled it will seek significant prison time, citing the deliberate and prolonged nature of the abuse.
Both cases will likely renew pressure on state child welfare agencies to explain how children can starve over extended periods without triggering an effective intervention. For the families, neighbors, and school staff who saw fragments of these children’s lives, the answers so far have not been enough.
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