The family members of a fourteen-year-old girl from West Virginia who was found in a “skeletal state” have been charged in the case.
On the morning of Monday, the Boone County Sheriff’s Office arrested Jerry, 75, and Donna Stone, 76. They were charged with child abuse causing death.
According to a criminal complaint that was made on Monday, the Stones did not “exercise a minimum degree of care” to make sure the 14-year-old was safe.
Kyneddi Miller, 14, was found “emaciated to a skeletal state” on April 17 in the home she shared with her mother, Julie Anne Stone Miller, 49, and her grandparents. This is a little more than a month after the charges.
In April, Julie Miller was arrested and charged with neglecting a child so much that they died. A grand jury was told about her case.
A criminal complaint brought to the attention of the Boone County Magistrate Court in April says that officers were called to the 400 block of Cameo Road in Morrisville for a death call. Once the police got to the house, they saw the girl, who turned out to be Kyneddi Miller, lying on the bathroom floor and a foam pad.
Investigators said that they talked to the girl’s grandma as part of their work. She told the police that the girl hadn’t been to school since late 2019 or early 2020 and had only been outside the house maybe twice in the last four years.
The complaint also said that she had an eating problem for a few years and that she “appeared shockingly emaciated and skeletal.”
According to the complaint, the girl’s grandma told deputies that she had not been able to do anything on her own for four or five days because of how sick she was and that she hadn’t eaten in months.
It is also said that her health had been getting worse for months or even years. Concerns about Kyneddi’s health were brought up by family members.
Through the Freedom of Information Act, WCHS got proof that Kyneddi Miller began homeschooling in February 2021, as her mother had asked. Julie told Boone County Schools in an email that Kyneddi was worried about being exposed to COVID-19 because her grandparents were living with them.
Gov. Jim Justice said at first that Child Protective Services (CPS) did not know about Miller, but later he said that the information he was given was wrong.
The death was called a tragedy by the West Virginia Department of Human Services, which is in charge of Child Protective Services, but the department would not go into specifics about the case.
WCHS later got documents that proved CPS knew about Kyneddi Miller more than a year before she died.
West Virginia State Police said Miller seemed to be okay during a safety check in March 2023 and sent the case to CPS for further investigation.