Still left: Sheila Fletcher Ideal: Clay Fletcher (East Feliciana Parish Jail) Inset: Lacey Fletcher and the sofa she died on (Screengrabs by way of WBRZ).
A Louisiana mom and father who neglected their disabled adult daughter to the position that she “melted” into the family’s sofa had been sentenced to commit the next 20 several years in prison on Wednesday.
Lacey Ellen Fletcher, 36, could not shift. Dwelling in just about finish paralysis with a ailment referred to as “locked-in” syndrome, she relied completely on the care and awareness of her moms and dads.
On Jan. 3, 2022, Lacey Fletcher was discovered lifeless and sunk into a 1960s-design and style sofa at residence in Slaughter a very small city of less than 100 people found about 40 minutes dorth of Baton Rouge. She was coated in feces, emaciated, her human body riven with ulcers. A human-sized hole was worn down into the sofa where by she sat and relieved herself for a number of several years, according to East and West Feliciana Parish District Attorney Sam D’Aquilla.
In early February, in a assertion issued by their then-defense lawyer right after pleading no contest to manslaughter, Sheila Fletcher and Clay Fletcher, each 66, preserved they liked their daughter “to loss of life.”
D’Aquilla voiced incredulousness at the assert reminding Law&Crime at the time that the woman’s skin was falling off her bones and vowed to go after justice for the worst situation of human neglect most authorities have observed in the Parish.
Prosecutors pushed for the greatest sentence just after the plea which was technically utilized during their sentencing listening to. Each moms and dads had been sentenced to 40 years in jail with 20 yrs of their sentences suspended, according to Baton Rouge-based CBS affiliate WAFB.
The pair will also be matter to 5 a long time of supervised probation after unveiled from prison.
“You know, you would not handle your animals like that,” the prosecutor instructed the Television station on Wednesday. “If you had a horse that was in the stall behind your residence, and you go back again there and the flesh is just gone from its overall body, and you can see bones exposed I necessarily mean, you would not even treat your animal like that.”
Parish Coroner Dr. Ewell Dewitt Bickham III reportedly mentioned the lady had final noticed a medical doctor swo many years back. She weighed all of 96 lbs . at the time of her demise and had COVID-19.
“I could not consume for a 7 days, and I cried for a week,” Bickham advised Baton Rouge-primarily based ABC affiliate WBRZ in June 2023.
Previous summer time, the woman’s mom and dad had been indicted in their daughter’s murder for the second time.
“The query on everybody’s intellect is, how could they be caretakers living in the house with her and have her get in a affliction like that?” D’Aquilla instructed New Orleans metro place outlet NOLA.com in late April 2022. “It’s cruelty to the infirm. We simply cannot just enable it sit.”
Months handed in advance of the investigation into Lacey Fletcher’s demise experienced been wrapped up. But by the end, the district lawyer was intent on pressing fees. A official indictment on fees of murder in the second degree was issued in opposition to her parents in early Could 2022.
That initially indictment was tossed by a decide thanks to defective language in the charging paperwork a quickly amended procedural difficulty.
“This case was so horrific,” D’Aquilla instructed WBRZ in 2022. “The coroner and the sheriff’s place of work in the beginning investigates this scenario in January and the problem she was identified was just unbelievable.”
Hunger, the coroner identified, contributed to Lacey Fletcher’s dying. Bickham also reported that despite when she was observed dead by her mom, she probably died two or three times prior to.
The woman’s system gradually rubbed the hole by means of the upholstery and cushion, authorities claimed. The gap was filled with feces and urine. D’Aquilla’s workplace said there was also feces shoved into the victim’s confront, chest, and abdomen and that her hygiene had been neglected to the issue that maggots lived in her matted, knotted hair.
“Opened the door, walked into the home, there was a stench, an odor, feces, fecal material, urine, you could not hold your breath,” Bickham formerly told WAFB. “The father was entirely emotionless. The mother’s head was lying down on, among her legs. She was weeping a tiny bit.”
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