A disabled Louisiana woman was found unresponsive and covered in excrement. Her parents will likely be charged in her death.
In what a local official has deemed "one of the worst cases of neglect in recent memory," the dead body of a 36-year-old woman was found melted into a coach at her parents' house. According to records, the late Lacey Ellen Fletcher was supposed to have been under the care of her parents, Sheila and Clay Fletcher, largely because she suffered from a condition that impaired her ability to communicate or move called locked-in syndrome. Instead, the couple allegedly allowed their daughter to waste away on their coach until she stopped breathing on January 3rd.
The tragic incident is said to have happened sometime within 48 hours of an emergency phone call that the victim's parent's made to 911. When the coroner and police officers arrived on the scene in East Feliciana Parish, Louisiana, they were gravely taken aback by what they saw and the stench that flooded their nostrils.
“When I first walked in the house, it smelled of feces, fecal material, however, you want to put that politely, it stunk," said the assigned coroner Dr. Ewell Bickham. "And when I got to the body, the individual was basically sitting in a hole, filled with liquid stool and urine."
According to Dr. Bickham, the victim weighed just 96 lbs as she had been medically neglected by both of her parents for at least a decade prior to the shocking discovery at the Fletcher residence.
Following an extensive autopsy, the Jefferson Parish Forensic Center ruled Lacey's death a homicide. Her parents have not been arrested or charged with any crimes as of yet, but District Attorney Sam D' Aquilla is calling for the grand jury to strongly consider a second-degree murder charge regarding the treatment of their daughter. Therefore, a grand jury is expected to make a decision sometime today on whether or not Lacey's parents will be charged with manslaughter, cruelty to the infirmed, second-degree murder, homicide, or none of the above.
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