Baltimore parents who starved their daughter to death sentenced to 60 years

The parents of a severely emaciated 5-year-old Baltimore girl who weighed no more than an infant when she died in 2024 were sentenced Thursday to 60 years in prison after they pleaded guilty to charges of child abuse resulting in death.

Assistant State’s Attorney Robert Render had asked Maryland Circuit Court Judge Dana Middleton to sentence the parents to 70 years, the harshest sanction available. He said Bernice Byrd, 34, and Gerald Byrd, 36, lacked remorse for what he called heinous conduct. Defense attorneys for the Byrds argued that the Baltimore City Department of Social Services is partly to blame for Zona Byrd’s death and urged leniency for her parents.

Before imposing her sentence, Middleton called the case one of the most disturbing she has ever seen.

“I don’t know if there is any amount of time that will ever be enough,” she said. “It’s not just about time. One child doesn’t have any more time left. That time is gone.”

The judge condemned the parents for their cruelty and the Department of Social Services for failing to protect Zona and her siblings, whom she said were vulnerable, distressed and in need. She said the children’s aunt was accused of harassment for calling the state’s child abuse hotline and attempting to report suspected neglect too many times.

“That is a systemic failure that contributed to the death of a child,” Middleton said.

When authorities discovered Zona unresponsive in her bed in October 2024, her ribs were visible and a detective who touched her body could not discern any muscle, according to a police report. She should have been in kindergarten, yet she was wearing toddler-size clothing that hung off her skeletal frame. She weighed 17 1/2 pounds.

Her older brother was also malnourished and could hardly stand or walk, police wrote at the time.

The Byrds in February pleaded guilty to one count of abuse resulting in death of a child under age 13 and one count of child abuse in the first degree. The first was for Zona and the second for the harm to their son.

The starvation and neglect Zona and her brother suffered was “completely avoidable,” Render wrote in a blistering sentencing memorandum he filed with the court last week. He alleged that Gerald Byrd made sure to feed his dog but not his children. The Byrds also fed themselves from a stash of nonperishable food they kept locked away in their bedroom, Render wrote.

Zona and her brother would rifle through the trash and eat raw meat to survive, Render wrote.

And when they started showing obvious signs of harm, like lethargy and despair, the Byrds allowed their children to waste away rather than help them, he added. Asked to explain why Zona and her brother were so underweight, Gerald Byrd told a behavioral health clinician they were “small naturally,” according to Render.

“It beggars the imagination to contemplate the suffering the children endured and the distress that they endured while being callously ignored by the people they trusted to protect them and provide for them,” Render wrote.

Attorney Deborah Katz Levi, who represents Gerald Byrd, asked the judge to consider the Baltimore City Department of Social Services’ failure to protect the Byrd children.

At the February hearing where the Byrds pled guilty, Levi read from an April 2024 letter she said details the agency’s handling of a tip that the children were being starved nine months before Zona died.

The caller alleged the children were being kept in a locked bedroom and smelled of urine, Levi said. The caller reported Zona was “skin and bones” and sent the agency pictures showing the girl’s emaciated state, according to the letter Levi read.

Judge Middleton said social workers either did not see the Byrd children as they documented in reports, or didn’t care about them. Or they lied, she added.

“The Department of Social Services should be deterred by what happened to these children,” she said.

A spokesperson for the Maryland Department of Human Services, which oversees the city department of social services, could not immediately be reached for comment on its handling of the case.

Following Zona’s death in 2024, human services department spokesperson Lilly Price said, “The death of any child is an immeasurable loss felt deeply by everyone in the community and by all out staff,” who dedicate their careers to protecting kids.

Levi also told the judge that Gerald Byrd suffered abuse and neglect as a child growing up in Baltimore City’s foster care system, which has operated for 40 years under a federal consent decree to protect children’s safety.

Bernice Byrd’s attorney, Phillip Corey Levin, said he “couldn’t be happier” that the judge showed his client some grace with a sentence 10 years below the maximum amount of jail time.

In a statement, State’s Attorney Ivan J. Bates thanked police for their diligence on the case and prosecutors “for finding a resolution that both delivers justice and spares this family from the trauma of a trial.”

“No punishment will be as severe for these defendants as living with the knowledge that they murdered their innocent child. Today’s guilty plea does ensure the safety of Zona’s siblings, who are also victims of their parents’ horrific actions,” Bates’ statement said. “As a father, the facts of this case are nauseating, and my heart continues to ache for Zona, who is gone from us far too soon.”