Jury finds father guilty for role in 2019 death of ‘Baby Beth’

The father of a 3-year-old girl called “Baby Beth” was held accountable by a  Comanche County jury of seven women and five men for her 2019 death.

It took the jury around two hours Friday to find Henry Clarence Lilly III, 54, guilty of felony counts of first-degree manslaughter and child abuse in Comanche County District Judge Jay Walker’s courtroom. The jury recommended he serve five years in prison for the manslaughter count and another 13 years for a charge of child abuse.

“Baby Beth” died Jan. 3, 2019, from an untreated case of rhabdomyosarcoma, a rare type of cancer of soft tissue (such as muscle), connective tissue (such as tendon or cartilage), or bone. She had a 17-pound tumor in her stomach comprising half her body weight and was undernourished, according to the Oklahoma Medical Examiner.

District Attorney Kyle Cabelka said during his closing arguments that experts in that form of cancer testified “Baby Beth” had a very good chance of survival if Lilly and his wife, Bonnie Beth Mills-Lilly, 46, had followed a pediatrician’s advice for them to take her for testing at a pediatric hospital following a doctor’s visit the day after Thanksgiving in 2018. The mother is slated for trial for the same charges during the April/May jury trial docket.

Cabelka said it was a difficult case for everyone involved, including the jury. He noted that images of the little girl’s dead body will haunt all who saw them for far longer than the proposed sentence for Lilly.

“I am very happy with the outcome and appreciate the hard work of the jury,” he said. “We are halfway there in getting justice for ‘Baby Beth.’”

Lilly’s co-counsel, David Autry, of Oklahoma City, argued the couple’s choice of using alternative medicine, i.e. herbs, oils and enemas, for the girl’s treatment may have been a bad choice, but said it wasn’t a crime.

“Were they doing it to hurt the child?” he asked. “In their belief, mistaken as it may be, they were trying to help the child.”

Autry argued that “Baby Beth” was destined to her fate no matter the efforts her parents put in.

“The child was going to die regardless,” he said, “regardless of what Mr. Lilly could have done.”

The Lillys and their six children lived in an RV. They’d come to Oklahoma from Pennsylvania about a week before Christmas 2018 and were staying at an RV park near Lake Lawtonka when “Baby Beth” died.

In October 2018, “Baby Beth” had gotten into a large bag of Gummi Bears and eaten them. Lilly had testified he believed it caused a blockage that was causing his daughter’s malaise. When she didn’t get better through oil and herb therapy, he and his wife took her to see a pediatrician. After being referred for testing and imaging, the couple discussed their options and, ultimately, according to Lilly, he agreed with his wife to treat her with alternative medicine.

Bonnie Lilly had been institutionalized twice in 2016 and didn’t trust in doctors, according to trial testimony. Lilly testified that after a “discussion and negotiation,” he followed her lead for treatment that led to the little girl’s death three days after her third birthday.

Cabelka cited negligence was proven when Lilly left the girl’s care to his “crazy wife.” Lilly worked eight hours a day from an office in the back of the RV, would follow that up by driving to the next destination and sleep. His son, William, testified he was an “absent” father in the children’s’ lives. The district attorney placed blame through negligence on Lilly.

“He knew she was sick and did nothing,” he said. “The man did nothing, he told you that. … He wasn’t present.”

Cabelka noted that both sides agreed that “Baby Beth” first acted definitively ill in October 2018, although there were symptoms earlier, according to her brothers William and Buddy’s testimony. 

Over the last months of her life, she missed celebrating birthday parties, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas and her final birthday due to being unable to walk due to the tumor’s size, Cabelka said. William testified her face displayed pain that appeared to “torture” the young girl. The blame goes to those who were supposed to care for and protect their child, the parents, Calbelka said.

“How many opportunities did he have to save his child’s life?” he asked. “This child did not absolutely have to die like she did.”

Cabelka closed with one request for the jury:

“Give her justice and find this man guilty.”

They did just that.

Following a pre-sentence investigation, Lilly will be formally sentenced at 9 a.m. April 12.