Insets (left to right): Leroy Somersall III and Madison Smith (Seminole County Sheriff's Office). Background: Orlando Health Arnold Palmer Hospital for Children in Orlando, Fla. (Google Maps).
A Florida father who admitted that he and his girlfriend did not feed their twins properly will spend the next few years in prison.
Leroy Somersall III, 24, pleaded no contest to two counts of neglect of a child with great bodily harm after police said he and the mother of his children, 24-year-old Madison Smith, brought their infant twins to the hospital in January with severe malnourishment. Smith pleaded no contest to the same charges on April 29 and was sentenced to 45 months in prison.
Medical staff told police at the time of Somersall and Smith's arrests that the babies, a boy and a girl, were severely malnourished and dehydrated, and weighed less than they did at birth.
On Jan. 6, Somersall and Smith brought their 5-month-old twins to Orlando Health Arnold Palmer Hospital for Children in Orlando after they found their son unresponsive. According to an affidavit obtained by local ABC affiliate WFTV, medical staff contacted Child Protective Services and later told detectives that the boy was "dehydrated and malnourished to the point where you can see every bone in his body."
When police asked Smith how she was feeding both babies, she told them the pediatrician recommended increasing their formula to 70 to 80 milliliters every two hours. However, Smith said she had not spoken to the pediatrician since September 2025, when the babies were newborns.
The twins each weighed around 5.7 pounds when they were brought to the hospital. According to the affidavit, the girl weighed more than that when she and her brother were born one month premature.
Both parents told police they did not realize they needed to increase the feedings as their babies grew. They also claimed that since Somersall was thin, they thought the babies were thin.
Both babies were expected to survive, but may have suffered neurological damage.
Somersall was sentenced Thursday to three and a half years in prison plus one year of probation.