Brandy Hawk says her young nephew showed physical problems that concerned her.

"He had a severe rash," said the suspect's sister-in-law. "It was his motor skills; he couldn't use his hands at all."

The boy's mother, Elizabeth, told Brandy that it was nothing to worry about. Brandy says her sister-in-law blamed it on "allergies."

But Brandy says she wasn't convinced, and neither was the child's father, Jerry Hawk, of Henry Clay Township. He and Elizabeth are separated and the boy was in his mother's care.

Brandy says her sister-in-law has extreme views on nutrition.

"She was going to live on water and sunlight," Brandy said.

Investigators say the little boy, who needed proper food at an important developmental stage, was given small amounts of nuts and berries, causing his condition to deteriorate.

Water and sunlight?  Small amounts of nuts and berries?  If somebody wants to be vegan -- despite the fact that humans are naturally omnivorous -- that can safely be done, but it requires real attention to nutrition to get all the raw ingredients the body needs from plant sources alone.  But people who have these ridiculous ideas that they can subsist on just a few foods that don't come close to providing the broad array of needed nutrients just leave me shaking my head.  Where do people get such nonsense?

What the mother did here is starvation, and it is child abuse every bit as bad as physical violence.