Inset left to right: John L. Towne and Ahhra K. Pugh (Cuyahoga County Jail). Background: The hotel where Towne and Pugh allowed their 11-year-old son to die in Independence, Ohio (Google Maps).
A mother and father in Ohio will spend several years behind bars for the death of their 11-year-old son, who died from medical neglect.
In April, John L. Towne, 46, and Ahhra K. Pugh, 45, were convicted by a jury of their peers in Cuyahoga County on counts of murder, endangering children, felonious assault, permitting child abuse, involuntary manslaughter, and tampering with evidence.
This week, Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas Judge Kevin K. Kelley sentenced the couple to 15 years in prison. The punishment was meted out for the 2024 death of their son, Hunter Towne.
On Jan. 10, 2024, authorities were called to an Extended Stay America Premier Suites hotel in Independence, a small suburb of Cleveland.
The local police department received reports of a deceased juvenile and arrived to find Hunter lying on a bed near a window. The broader hotel room was in what officers termed “deplorable conditions.”
The family had been living in the hotel with six children and two pets.
As it turned out, Hunter had been born with Hirschsprung’s disease — a rare congenital colon condition that effectively leads to severe intestinal blockages if left untreated — and other health issues.
In the days leading up to the boy’s death, he had been sick. The county medical examiner attributed his death to “caregiver medical neglect.”
In October 2024, an indictment charged the couple with the crimes for which they were later convicted — including one additional count of endangering children, which prosecutors eventually dropped.
During the sentencing hearing, Towne declined to speak — keeping mum on advice of counsel in order to preserve his appellate rights, according to a courtroom report by Shaker Heights-based CBS affiliate WOIO.
The mother did eventually speak.
“This is a tragedy,” Pugh’s lawyer first said on her behalf. “His loss is a pain that will forever be in his mother’s heart, his father’s heart, and his siblings’ heart. As I mentioned this is a tragedy. She wishes she could go back and change everything. Time cannot go back, unfortunately.”
Then it was Pugh’s turn. She rose slowly, in shackles and handcuffs, and spoke through tears while reading from prepared remarks.
“I want to apologize,” she said, her face downcast. “I want to apologize not only to Hunter, but to my other kids as well. Not only did I fail Hunter, but I killed him, and that kills me.”
As the tear-filled allocution continued, Pugh said she “should have taken command” and gotten her son the help he needed.
“In this, I lost everything that mattered to me,” she said. “I didn’t just lose Hunter. Essentially, I lost all my kids…I feel the weight of that cost daily. Not a day goes by that I don’t or won’t.”
