SALEM — The Salem mother charged with failing to give her 8-year-old son his cancer medications has a history of involvement with the Department of Social Services and police and lost custody of an older child, officials confirmed yesterday.

Kristen Anne LaBrie, 36, is also the mother of a 16-year-old child, her lawyer, Kevin James, said during her arraignment Monday on a child endangerment charge.

The older child was removed from LaBrie's custody at the request of DSS several years ago and now lives with a relative, a DSS spokeswoman confirmed yesterday. Allison Goodwin said she could not go into details of the earlier case and could not comment on why the older child was removed.

LaBrie has pleaded not guilty in the current case and is free on personal recognizance. Her lawyer has said she denies the charges.

LaBrie is accused of failing to give her son Jeremy Fraser his chemotherapy at home and canceling appointments for hospital treatments for his non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. Prosecutors allege that as a result Jeremy's condition has declined and is now terminal.

Police and prosecutors have not offered a motive and say they've never seen a case like this one.

"Certainly, it's unusual," said Steve O'Connell, a spokesman for Essex County District Attorney Jonathan Blodgett. He declined further comment, citing the ongoing case.

Police and court documents paint a picture of a woman in an unsteady existence, including frequent calls to police and repeated moves from place to place — court documents list at least four addresses in Lynn and Salem since 2003, and she recently moved again to Beverly.

Jeremy was also the subject of a prior DSS investigation that concluded in 2005, Goodwin said. She said she could not go into details of the allegations in that case.

But police reports reveal a pattern of domestic disputes at LaBrie's home. Officers responded to her address numerous times over the last four years on calls ranging from harassment to domestic assault and battery to an argument with the landlord.

In some incidents, LaBrie was the alleged victim, and in others she was the accused.

Boy found wandering

Then, in September 2006, a Salem police officer found then-7-year-old Jeremy wandering by himself near a Getty gas station on Jackson Street, some two blocks away from his house, according to a report.

The officer brought Jeremy, who is autistic, to the police station and then to North Shore Children's Hospital as a precaution. LaBrie told officers she had been doing laundry.

The incident was reported to the Department of Social Services.

A month later, police responded to LaBrie's address for a domestic dispute. Her boyfriend at the time reported she was throwing things around the house, accusing him of "not caring about an ill child of hers ... from a previous relationship," according to the police report. LaBrie also appeared intoxicated, the officer wrote.

Two weeks later, police responded shortly after 1 a.m. after the boyfriend accused LaBrie of slapping him in the face and throwing a telephone at him. LaBrie was arrested and charged with domestic assault and battery with a dangerous weapon. The charges were later dropped after the victim failed to show up in court.

Divorce papers filed in the Salem Probate and Family Court in 2003 include an allegation by LaBrie that her husband, Eric Fraser, was "cruel and abusive" during their marriage. She was granted a restraining order by a Lynn District Court judge in 2000, according to her divorce application.

In an undated letter in the divorce file, Eric Fraser appealed to a judge for help, saying that he feared for his son's well-being because of LaBrie's allegedly abusive relationship with a new boyfriend.

The letter also described a pattern of alleged harassment by LaBrie, including frequent calls and text messages to members of Fraser's family and efforts by LaBrie to prevent Fraser from seeing his son in the hospital.

Gave up custody

LaBrie and Fraser shared legal custody of the boy, but he remained in the physical custody of his mother until his hospitalization in March. Fraser said in an interview Monday that he was unable to "co-parent" effectively with LaBrie because of the tension between the two and cut off contact with her and his son for several months last year. Then his son's health declined, he said, and hospital officials said they could not allow Jeremy to go home with LaBrie.

On April 7, LaBrie agreed to give sole legal and physical custody of the boy to Fraser and not to seek visitation, according to court documents.

LaBrie's lawyer, James, would not comment outside court Monday and hung up when contacted by a Salem News reporter yesterday. He did not return two subsequent calls.