Midwest parents charged with murder after morbidly obese son aged SEVEN died weighing 255 pounds after being fed diet of potatoes because of his ‘texture preferences’

Two Michigan parents face murder charges after their seven-year-old son, who weighed 255 pounds, died of heart failure.

Prosecutors say Damien O’Brien, 40, and his wife, Jessica O’Brien, 41, also face child abuse and torture charges after their son Casper died from “extraordinary, horrific neglect.”

The seven-year-old boy allegedly never went to school and visited the doctor only once, while his parents kept him in a run-down ‘hoarder’ house in Flint Township, Michigan.

Police said they responded to a 911 call at the ‘absolutely disgusting’ home on November 4, 2025, and found Casper suffering from a medical emergency in a makeshift bed where four family members were sleeping together.

The child died in hospital a short time later, and a medical report stated that the cause of death was dilated cardiomyopathy, a heart failure disease, and that the contributing cause was morbid obesity.

The medical report stated that Casper weighed 255 kilograms and was only 1.2 meters tall. The average seven-year-old should weigh between 40 and 70 pounds.

Genesee County Prosecutor David Leyton announced charges against the parents this week, claiming they subjected their son to years of neglect and abuse.

‘This is apparently the cruel and extreme suffering this child is experiencing, caused by parental neglect,’ Leyton told WJRT. ‘I don’t want to accuse the parents of neglect or murder… I had no choice.’

Damien O’Brien, 40, and his wife Jessica O’Brien, 41, have been charged with murder, child abuse and torture after their son Casper died from ‘extraordinary, horrific neglect’, prosecutors said

Prosecutors said the parents left their home in Flint Township, Michigan, in a “hoarding” state and described their children’s ordeal as “cruel and extremely painful.”

Authorities said Casper is autistic and the couple also has a five-year-old daughter who was placed in the care of Child Protective Services.

Leyton said that although Damien O’Brien had a good career as a cloud engineer at Delta Dental and his family had health insurance, they never had their son get a medical check-up or deal with his health issues.

‘This is obesity. “This child did not have a pediatrician, I think he was only taken to the doctor once,” the prosecutor said.

The forensic autopsy report stated that the child was last seen by a doctor in February 2024 and was referred to a pediatric endocrinologist whom he had never seen before. MLive.com.

The report stated that Casper’s diet consisted of ‘potato chips and french fries’ and that he was unable to eat a variety of foods due to ‘texture issues’.

Despite the alleged extreme neglect, Leyton added that the day Casper died, the parents called their veterinarian to get their dog treated.

Police describe family home in Michigan’s Flint Township (pictured) as ‘absolutely disgusting’; One police officer said the litter on the floor was ‘so extreme I couldn’t tell whether it was carpet or wooden flooring’.

Casper, who was seen as a child on his parents’ social media profiles, died of heart failure when he was only 6 feet tall and weighed 255 pounds, according to a medical report.

Even though they allegedly neglected Casper, the parents called the veterinarian to get their dog treated the day the boy died, authorities said.

Authorities said the parents’ negligence was so severe that they never enrolled their children in schools. As Leyton says, ‘none of these children were even in the eyes of the government.’

‘CPS had never been there, no one knew these kids, they hadn’t been to school,’ he said.

When police and Child Protective Services searched the house following Casper’s death, they described the property as ‘absolutely disgusting’ and said piles of rubbish had accumulated throughout the house.

‘There was rubbish all over the house. “It was so extreme that I couldn’t tell whether the floor was carpeted or wood,” a police officer wrote in the incident report.

Police said they also found four neglected dogs in the home that needed urgent medical attention and a broken bathroom toilet filled with feces.

Police described the family’s home as ‘absolutely disgusting’ and said that on the day Casper died, they found him in a makeshift bed where four family members had been sleeping together due to a medical emergency.

Leyton described the home as a ‘hoarder’ situation and said he had never seen such a serious case before.

‘I can’t think of anything other than extraordinary, appalling negligence. “In my opinion, this is willful and wanton misconduct amounting to second-degree murder,” the prosecutor said.

The parents were arrested this week and formally charged with child abuse, torture and second-degree murder.

They are being held without bail in the Genesee County Jail and are scheduled for their next court appearance on July 2.