CHARLESTON, W.Va. — A grand jury on Tuesday returned a murder indictment against the mother and two grandparents of a 14-year-old West Virginia girl whose emaciated body was found in her home.
Kyneddi Miller’s body was found in April in the Boone County community of Morrisvale. Her case has sparked a state investigation into whether law enforcement and child protective services could have intervened to prevent her death.
Officers responding to a report of a death at the home found the girl in a bathroom and said her body was “emaciated to a skeletal state,” according to a criminal complaint filed in Boone County Superior Court.
The complaint said the teen had an eating disorder that led to “overwhelmingly visible disorders” and physical problems, but the mother had not sought medical help for her in at least four years. Miller was homeschooled at the time.
Initially, the girl’s mother, Julie Miller, and her grandparents Donna and Jerry Stone were charged with child abuse.
On Tuesday, the grand jury indicted them on charges of murder of a child by a parent, guardian or caretaker through failure or neglect to provide the necessities of life, and child neglect resulting in death, Boone County District Attorney Dan Holstein said.
A summons hearing is scheduled for Oct. 18. It was not immediately clear whether the three suspects had attorneys. Holstein said a copy of the indictment would not be made public until Wednesday.
Brian Abraham, chief of staff to Gov. Jim Justice, has said that state police were called to the girl’s home in March 2023 but found no evidence she had been abused. An officer then made an informal suggestion to the local social services office that she might need mental health treatment.
But no follow-up checks were made, Abraham said. The officer said Miller appeared healthy, but she said she didn’t want to leave her home because of fear of being around people due to COVID-19.
Justice, a Republican, called Miller’s death tragic and said she “fell through the cracks.”
The state Department of Human Services now requires that potential cases of abuse and neglect be referred to an intake hotline so they can be formally documented. Such referral requirements are now part of the training at state police academy events, Abraham said.
Under state code, parents of homeschooled students must complete annual academic evaluations, but they don’t have to submit them to the state until after grades three, five, eight and 11. Failure to report evaluations can result in a child being removed from the homeschool program and county truancy enforcement, Abraham said.
Sen. Patricia Rucker, a Jefferson County Republican and a former public school teacher who homeschooled her five children, said blaming the girl’s death on homeschooling laws “is misleading and unjust, and casts unfair blame on an overwhelmingly high-achieving population.”
Rucker said the child welfare system is “overburdened and underfunded” and that state leaders “resort to blame-shifting and scapegoating for homeschooling laws instead of addressing the root causes.”
House Democrats unsuccessfully pushed for a bill that would pause or potentially deny a parent’s request to homeschool if a teacher reports suspected child abuse: “Raylee’s Law” is named after an 8-year-old girl who died in 2018 from abuse and neglect after her parents pulled her out of school. Teachers at her elementary school had alerted Child Protective Services to possible abuse.
Republicans hold power in both houses of the legislature.