Is there anything more evil than an abusive parent?
Daytona Beach mother Talia Nelson will spend the next three decades behind bars for the torture and death of her teenage son.
At 14, he weighed only 33 pounds after years of imprisonment and abuse.
On January 1, 2024, first responders found an unconscious boy in a house of horrors.
In February 2024, a Volusia County grand jury indicted then-43-year-old Talia Nelson.
She faced multiple charges on the horrific death of her 14-year-old son.
The teenage victim, Zayke Smith-Nelson, weighed only 33 pounds at the time of his death.
On January 1 of 2024, emergency responders responded to a call about an unconscious child.
At the time, Nelson claimed that she had been cooking dinner when her son simply fell.
Smith-Nelson was pronounced dead at the hospital. The autopsy obviously revealed the cause of death to be homicide.
Authorities arrested Nelson on February 9.
Smith Nelson, a teenage boy, weighed only 33 pounds — the weight of a small dog. Put another way, he would be on the low end of the weight spectrum or underweight for a 4-year-old human.
The autopsy discovered severe malnutrition and dehydration. Scars and bruises covered the boy’s body.
To make this absolute horror even worse somehow, multiple bedsores indicated that he was likely unable to move much of the time.
The majority of abuse victims have few if any marks from the violence that their parents or other family inflict upon them.
However, in cases like the prolonged torture and killing of Zayke Smith-Nelson, the abuser realizes that they cannot send their victim to school.
This is why homeschooling and the barely existent regulation is the best friend of extreme abusers.
Indeed, officers who searched the residence found unopened homeschooling materials, possibly ordered to avoid questions.
Investigators found a room, presumably the victim’s, that contained no furniture and only soiled clothing. The room reportedly smelled of urine.
⚠️ WARNING: This post contains graphic descriptions of violence/gore/abuse
— True Crime Updates (@TrueCrimeUpdat) January 6, 2026
Talia Nelson, 45, of Daytona Beach, Florida, has been sentenced to 32 years in prison for the neglect & abuse that led to the death of her son, Zakye Smith-Nelson, 14. Nelson pleaded no contest to charges… pic.twitter.com/RzrDaWHBAj
Nelson claimed that her son had a rare bone disease, that he was lactose-intolerant, and that he was bulimic.
She also claimed that she could not recall the names of the doctors who had made these alleged determinations.
The investigation, however, showed that Smith-Nelson had not seen a doctor since 2020. Medical records showed that he had been in good health in June of that year.
Clearly, the three-and-a-half years that followed were filled with unthinkable torture at the hands of the woman who should have been protecting him.
Most abusers in our world tend to go unpunished, and often unreported. That is not the case for Nelson, however.
On January 5, now-45-year-old Talia Nelson entered no-contest pleas for aggravated manslaughter of a child and aggravation child-abuse.
As a result, she received a 32-year prison sentence.
Obviously, countless people have questions. Did this cruelty begin all at once, or was it a situation of escalating abuse? If Nelson had any co-conspirators, no reports or court records have mentioned them.
Ultimately, society as a whole failed to protect Zayke Smith-Nelson. Our legal system treats children as property of their parents in so many ways, trusting people to care for them simply because their reproductive systems happen to work properly.
How many other Smith-Nelsons are out there, unreported and undiscovered, buried under flower beds or locked in rooms waiting to die?