CenLAw
Kellye, the true crime enthusiast, and Kyler, her willing partner, delve into intriguing cases from Central & Northeastern Louisiana.
From small-town cases to nationally known crimes, they bring you stories that hit close to home, always with that Louisiana connection.
Tune in bi-weekly for your true crime fix and support their show for a shout-out in the next episode.
Stay safe out there!
CenLAw
"They Loved Her to Death": Lacey Ellen Fletcher
Louisiana Adult Protective Services
Louisiana Children's Special Health Services
Louisiana CYSHCN and their Families
National Council on Disability
Autism National Committee
Check our YouTube Channel for a playlist full of videos relating to this case & the podcast website blog that also has pictures and source links!
How could a community overlook such extreme neglect? Join us as we uncover the horrifying story of Lacey Ellen Fletcher, a woman whose life ended tragically after years of unimaginable neglect by her parents, Clay and Sheila Fletcher, in the small town of Slaughter, Louisiana. We explore the disturbing conditions in which Lacey was found, fused to a couch and abandoned in her own home, and the shocking details that were only revealed months after her death. The delay in media coverage and the appalling scene witnessed by officials are just the beginning of this deeply unsettling narrative.
Through this harrowing tale, we stress the critical importance of community awareness and the use of available resources for special needs care. Lacey’s story is a stark reminder of the consequences of neglect and the community's collective failure to protect one of its own. We aim to honor her memory by learning from these mistakes and ensuring no one else suffers a similar fate. Thank you for your unwavering support in our mission to raise awareness and seek justice.
Sources:
WBRZ - April 26th Article
WBRZ - "Loved Her to Death" Article
NYPost Article
WBRZ - Judge tosses indictment Article
WBRZ - Parents booked for daughter's murder Article
Daily Mail Article with Coroner
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All🎶created by: Uncle Sawyer
On April 26, 2022, wbrz Channel 2 reported on a story that they titled. Quote Coroner found woman melted into couch after she disappeared for a decade. Grand jury weighing charges for her parents. What unfolded after that article became not only state headlines but national headlines from the name of the town where this occurred, to the stomach turning and just ring with an air of just complete neglect and dismissal. But even more unbelievable, I had never heard of it.
Speaker 1:Welcome to episode 30,. They Loved Her to Death. The Murder of Lacey Ellen Fletcher. Hey guys, this is Kelly. Welcome to Sin Law.
Speaker 1:I'm back after over a month. All I can do is say I am truly apologetic. Life does its thing, whether we ask it to or not, and on the list of priorities I have to put I don't have to, but I usually do put myself and my fun time last. So getting everything straight and back in order took a minute. So I'm here now and I have all of the stories. I have all of the things. I have kind of set aside what I had planned for the year anniversary, which was last month in June, I had planned to redo episode one about Connor Wood and that whole situation, but unfortunately some of the plans fell through and then again life happens. So I decided that I'm going to hit these cases that I have been dying to talk about and get them out to you guys as quickly and as seamlessly as possible, and that's kind of where we're going to start today.
Speaker 1:This case came out of nowhere. Thank you, lenora. Again, this is my true crime soul mate, who is also a fantastic hairdresser just saying she sent me this case and I was shooketh. I had never heard of it, anything about it, and I think that in and of itself, is a layer of this entire situation. That just goes to show you what you know having the good old boy syndrome, or a lot of money and or both, all, etc. Etc. It can hamper uh, coverage, news coverage and things like that. And so, um, the fact that the article on april 26th was the first mention of this case is mind-blowing, because I'm going to start off by telling you that she died, ms Lacey Ellen Fletcher. She died on January 3rd. Let me let that sink in for a second January 3rd to April 26th, and there is nothing, nothing. And why would I be surprised at this, you ask? Well, mostly because, like that article title said, she was found melted fused, was found melted fused, totally encompassed in what was remaining of a couch and what remained of her body.
Speaker 1:Having said that, this episode is not for the faint of heart. There will be gross, disgusting, disheartening, abusive, especially abuse of a special needs victim, of a child in heart and in mind by her own parents. It makes me want to vomit. So, having said that, this is your trigger warning, these are your precautionary measures, times to be taken. If you're going to get out, do it now, because this is about as easy as it's going to be right now. And it's not even easy now Because the image that I just gave you, you're trying to wrap your head around it but you're not going to be able to. No one should have to. This shouldn't be real. But this was Lacey's existence and then her death.
Speaker 1:So let me just start off by saying that I know I've read somewhere, avid reader, specifically the horror genre. I know I've read in one of the books, albeit I could not tell you right now which author it was, but I feel very confident in saying I've read at least one that had the town of Slaughter as a location in said book. Um, little did I know, but I'm now aware there is a town in Louisiana which is a small town, mind you, um, in East Feliciana, parish, known as slaughter. It used to have a different name back in the day, but apparently they took up the name slaughter because that one sounded better somehow. Honestly, it was a family name, to be honest, I did read a little bit about that, but, uh, apparently affluence got you the name of a town, even if that name also was synonymous with butchery death. It is the actual end of manslaughter.
Speaker 1:So I mean, anyway, regardless of all that, the 2010 census put the population of slaughter at 997. As of 2020, the estimates that are coming in for the Census Bureau say there's somewhere around 882 people. It's technically part of the Metropolitan Statistical Area of Baton Rouge. That gives you any idea of where this is located, and when you Google it, there's not much. There's just not, there's not a whole lot going on right there. If you're heading down, though, from I don't know, like Roxy or any of those places, you're probably going to go through. Slaughter. It's one of the little small towns that's sitting right there on your way to Baton Rouge Small, small, small, small, small town.
Speaker 1:The family of the Fletchers lived in Slaughter. As far as I could tell, they lived there their entire lives Mom, dad that I will introduce you to here momentarily momentarily but they were all from there, born there, raised there, stayed there and Lacey, unfortunately, in April of 2022, died there. Now, the only difference in most other people that you know live and die in slaughter Lacey's death was far, far, far from normal now. Lacey's death was far, far, far from normal Now. Lacey herself was a very unique individual. According to all the documents and reports that I could find covering this case, lacey had a pretty normal upbringing. She actually attended Brownfields Baptist Academy in Baton Rouge until her ninth grade year and then she was transferred to homeschooling as a teenager. She had major social anxiety and met with a psychologist over a three-year period, all the way up until 2010.
Speaker 1:Although the information about her specific diagnoses are not they're not very forthcoming in the media and again, this plays into the whole wealth and small town business, because I don't know as much as I want to um, and I feel like it should have been at least more in depth. You know what I mean. However, as you'll see, this case didn't actually go to a quote-unquote trial, so we didn't get the full disclosure and discovery, like we would have if they had had a full-blown jury trial or bench trial. So what we do know is that, like I said, she was on the spectrum. She was severely autistic and, according to the only people that had seen her in the last decade her parents she had recently been nonverbal. So she had gone consistently downhill and, from everything that I can gather, everyone who knew this town, the Fletchers, said they were amazing people. They'd go out of their way to do right by you. They went to church every single Sunday. They were always out and about. They were a very active part of their community.
Speaker 1:Um, miss Sheila Fletcher that was Lacey's mother. She was an alderman in the city of Slaughter for four years and didn't resign until February of 2022, about a month after Lacey had passed away and I actually looked up the minutes for those meetings and she used to be very, very active. So she was a very, you know, prominent member of this community and everybody who was there or even paid just the slightest bit of attention, they knew who these people were. They knew the Fletchers. Now, at the time that she was arrested, with her husband, sheila Fletcher was 64 years old and her husband, clay Fletcher, was also 64 years old now of what I could find, which wasn't a lot because, like I said, they're they in the middle of freaking nowhere in a town called slaughter.
Speaker 1:The only reason that your name ever gets in the headlines, honestly, is those top 10 weirdest names or worst named cities of the country, and I'm pretty sure Louisiana has like three on there Anyway. So slaughter obviously doesn't get a lot of press. There's not a lot of record keeping for the general public. I'm sure if you went and talked to some people there they could give you literally every detailed play-by-play of the neighbor that or the next three neighbors, doors down and be able to give you all of the background of their children's children and all I mean. You know. You know what I mean. Like that's just the kind of place that it seems to be and from what I gathered, sheila she used to be a police and court clerk in Baker, louisiana. She was also assistant to a city prosecutor and that was in Zachary uh, louisiana, and like I said it was, it was about a month after she died, but I think my notes said that she was. It was about three weeks after Lacey passed away that she resigned as alderman for the city of uh slaughter.
Speaker 1:So now Clay, an enigmatic man that he is, I couldn't find hardly anything. The only thing I could find about his past was that he was a. He was an officer of a nonprofit Baton Rouge. Ok, he was an officer of a nonprofit Baton Rouge Civil War Roundtable, I guess, like reenactment committee, and I don't. I'm not trying to be rude to anybody. He may be a very nice man, but to me it seemed like he'd be in a bomb a little bit, and especially in in this situation, I feel like he was very much the non-pants wearing member of this couple. So, moving swiftly along the house on tom drive where Lacey's body was eventually found, it looks like any other house. It looks like Mayberry. It looks like nothing wrong could ever happen here. But we all know what they say about behind closed doors and we all know about appearances and the faces that we show to the people around us and who gets what. Now I remember reading the very first article on this case and I was in tears by the end of it and I that reminds me all of the articles that I found.
Speaker 1:There are multitudinous videos now on YouTube about this. Like I said it's. It's been a couple years 2022, when all of this kind of happened, but they're still not really in litigation or anything like that. But there's still court dates happening in reference to this case specifically. So there's a lot of videos on YouTube. Most of them are short, little snippets of like. You know how they do the. I refer to it as like speed dating, true crime because you get like a three minute snapshot and they cram everything all into it at once and you know it hits hard, it hits fast, but that's not how I do things.
Speaker 1:Again, with the brevity not being my strong suit, I prefer to have a better understanding, a more clear picture all the way around, or I try to anyway. However, I do have a playlist now available on my YouTube. It's titled Lacey Fletcher and it has all of the videos that I watched, all the videos that I found pertaining to the case, including the news coverage from WBRZ, and I also have all of the links to those articles, news coverages, any of the references and things like that. But I always put in my show notes. Those are also on my website at sinlawpodcastcom. Go on there and you'll be able to see the blog post as well, where I will also have some of the pictures, the place where all of the pictures will be nitty gritty, gross, disgusting. All of the ones that be nitty, gritty, gross, disgusting, all of the ones that I could possibly scrounge up from my position over here, those will all be on my patreon. Unfortunately, they will be behind a paywall because I don't want to be the one responsible for someone's kid accidentally stumbling upon them if I throw them on my website. So I think we still only have the one patreon for the moment, which is fine by me. I don't. I'm not here for the money, I'm here for I don't know the the release, I guess, because I have to get these stories out of me and and give them to others so that I don't have to keep them. And I think it's important, especially in this case, to have someone be a voice, because she was muffled and silenced even after her death, which is an injustice in and of itself. So let's get back to it and, like I said, lacy, beautiful girl, by the way, I'll have her pictures up. You'll be able to see her front and center and beautiful, beautiful girl.
Speaker 1:And she eventually got to such a severe, heightened social anxiety that the medical term is agoraphobia, and I know if you have never heard that word before. It's a lot easier than it sounds. It literally just means that they're too afraid to go outside. If you've seen or read any of the books uh, the lady at the window or whatever that one is, they made a spoof of it, that's all. I always mess it up because I try to remember I, I in. Consequentially, inevitably I remember the name of the spoof and not the real one, even though I read the book before I ever saw the movie, which anyway Moving. Moving on, agoraphobia just means that you're afraid to go outside, you're too afraid, and also it can also have a double meaning of almost like afraid of your own shadow, that things that shouldn't worry you worry you more than you could ever imagine and basically restrict you to not even venturing outside of whatever your safe zone or whatever your safe place is. Now that becomes important later, and I'm pretty sure you're already putting pieces together here because you guys are not dumb.
Speaker 1:They eventually released a statement in one of the articles. I'm pretty sure all of the major information that I got was from WBRZ and I will definitely have links to all of those in the in the show notes, but one of them said that she was diagnosed, um with asperger's, which was a lifelong condition, and it's one of the ones. I believe that's um also um, musk, elon musk, fun fact. I'm pretty sure that's what he was diagnosed with, also as asperger's. But the south park episode is great. Anyway, it has symptoms of obsessive focus. It's known to leave patients who have been diagnosed with it having maladjusted or underdeveloped social cues and understanding. So they're always going to be a little bit weird, a little bit awkward, a little bit not completely sure what they're supposed to be doing with their hands type situation and that leads into, you know, and that also in and of itself creates more anxiety, creates more stress, so on and so forth. So it's easier for them just to hole up hermit crab into their shell and stay there.
Speaker 1:This is what Lacey's parents claimed of her. Hey there, this is what Lacey's parents claimed of her, and that by the time that they stopped taking her to the doctor, which, after the april 26th article came out remember, she died in january. On january 3rd her mother made a 911 call and said she had found her daughter not breathing after the april 26th article was released by WBRZ. That's when the neighbors who lived literally next door to the Fletchers that's when they found out that Lacey was dead. They did not even know that she had passed away three and a half months earlier until they read it in a news article. Do you remember what I said about the fletcher's being very ingrained and very involved in the community? Seems like something that. However, I can also understand why it wasn't mentioned, because when they eventually got around to interviewing the coroner, that, um, I believe he was on scene and he was also the one that did the autopsy. Let me get that straight. Yes, he was at the scene and his initial statement was very vague because they were still waiting on the grand jury indictment, because the article was released april 26th. The grand jury was meeting on the 2nd of may, I believe, to be able to decide whether or not to prosecute the parents in the murder of Lacey.
Speaker 1:Now, this was probably I think it was in February of this year and I'm going to trigger warn you again just because that's how bad that is, and you guys know I don't like to be redundant about trigger warnings. I gave you one in the beginning, that's your out. But because of the content. I'm telling you now this gets rough. Okay, and again, websites, pictures following, yada, yada, yada. All of the things will be available if you are like me and you need or would like to have visuals to go along. But if you don't have a strong stomach or if these kind of things will put you into a whirlwind of anxiety and stress yourself, please don't. Please, don't even click it, just don't. Just pass, pass, pass. Okay, bad things are out there, bad things happen. You don't need to see that. So here we go.
Speaker 1:The coroner, dr ewell ewell ewellL Bickham, told Ashley Banfield because at this point we had gone national folks. He said, quote I've seen every kind of death there is. I've never seen a homicide like this. I have never seen a human being literally tortured and allowed to die while she is alive. Unquote. He goes on to say later that lacy did not decompose, she rotted in her own body in that hole in that sewer in the couch.
Speaker 1:Now remember from the opening that the first headline that anybody saw in regards to this case was the headline melted into her couch, some of the worst side of humanity that we have to confront and deal with. And it's mind-blowing to me that her parents allowed this to be a thing and that's why this case is hard and it hurts. And I'm Lenora can tell, tell you, I literally wrote her and I was like, dude, you got to be freaking, kidding me. Why would you do this to me? I was in the middle of my serial killer set. She sent me this while I was in the middle of I think it was Nathaniel Code that I was um writing and researching and I was like you got to be kidding me. You can't do this to me, because I needed to know, I needed to find out what happened. How did they get here? How was this bad?
Speaker 1:Because the coroner, when he describes it, he had been working at the time that he was called out to the scene to deal with the crime scene body that had been found in. The body that had been found was the body of lacy. He said in over 30 years of being a coroner, he had never seen anything quite this horrific. He says that her body was found melted in a waste-filled crater in her family's couch and that he is still, to this day, disturbed by what he saw. Here we go Lacey, who was 36 at the time of her death, was covered in urine and feces and she was fused F-U-S-E-D fused to the maggot-ridden couch at her parents' home. They said that the boards, the floorboards beneath this couch were buckling because of the massive amount of urine and fecal matter and everything else that was being allowed to rot under this couch, that the floorboards were being. You know, they were weakening and bending and bowing because of the nastiness, because it was rotting basically. And they say that they believe that for the last 12 years or so that this is basically where she stayed, she never moved. She weighed 100 pounds at the time of her death. She again. They reported that she was diagnosed with autism. Her parents claimed that she refused to eat when they tried to feed her and then when she wouldn't eat she had no energy, so therefore she couldn't leave the couch. They also claimed later that she was so afraid of things not being the way that they should be that she.
Speaker 1:There was a neighbor that quoted that she was just a normal fun kid Before she completely vanished. He said they used to play outside and he hadn't seen her in five or six years. He was quoted as saying that the house smelled like a sewer or a septic tank and the smell of death. He said he'd never smelt it in his life and he's dealt with all kinds of decomposing bodies, death, degradation, whatever. Never had he smelled anything quite this horrific. And the witnesses that were there when the the fletchers were uh arrived, or when the, when the uh emergency services arrived at the fletch house, they said that the father was emotionless, direct quote while her mother sat with her head between her knees and shed quote a tear or two, unquote. And then what they found in there. Every single person that had any kind of contact with this case has been reportedly and self-reported that they are completely traumatized and will never forget having to deal with this scene, having go to this house, having to play any kind of role or part in this event.
Speaker 1:Dr bickham said that there was no evidence that she had been fed at all, except for like a small bag of like hard candies that were somewhere nearby. When he was later conducting the autopsy, her stomach oh my god, this is hard um. Her stomach contained pieces of foam that matched the couch that she was found in and feces in her stomach contents. That's what she had in her stomach, not to mention the fact that her hair was matted with feces, smelled awful, I'm sure, and she said. He said that she had sores that were so bad that made her bones visible when she was found, and that they had been infested with maggots, including around her genitalia.
Speaker 1:Her mother later claimed that she cleaned up every day. She cleaned her up every day to make sure she was okay. Yeah, tell me how that works out. Tell me how. Tell me how you clean her up every single day. And then she ends up dying in such a way that she has fecal matter and foam from the couch that she's laying on it. And you could see in the in the crime scene photos and this was reported by a couple people from the scene that there were bite marks in the couch, in the sofa that she died in. Because you can't say on, because she was a part of it, she was in it.
Speaker 1:How your job as parents are to be protectors, to be guardians of these children that can't fend for themselves, especially special needs children. If you couldn't freaking handle it, if she wasn't good for your image, you should have done something else about it and not left her alone on a couch to die, choking on her own feces and foam from the couch that she was using to even what kind of life was that? And how the ever live in hail? Did this entire freaking community not ever call anybody or any or make any kind of report or notice or anything of the sort? For over a decade 12 years, was the last time she'd seen a doctor. The doctor believes she just died. Did they not really care, like it was just another name? Did they keep refilling her prescriptions? Did she have prescriptions? Was she on some? There are so many questions that I don't have answers to that I would really love to be able to give you.
Speaker 1:But again, the majority of this coverage came three months after the fact. What I can say is that mom and dad fletcher denied for almost like 18 months, so nearly two years. They straight up, just they refused to say that they had killed their daughter. You know what they said. I will tell you what they said because it's infuriating. After they were indicted because they were indicted, like I said, sheila called 911 the morning of January 3rd. They had actually gone out of town the weekend before that. Who the hell knows where Jet setting off into the sunset. Come back to their daughter dead on the couch.
Speaker 1:The official cause of death at the autopsy was sepsis, medical neglect and starvation. Starvation was a big thing, like I said, the uh child woman. She was a woman, she was 36 years old, but she was still a child in my mind, in my eyes. All of the things that she weighed 100 pounds. She hadn't got off that couch in Lord knows how long, somebody knows how long, and they're not talking. The doctor that did the autopsy in actually was called to the scene, dr Bickham. He was quoted as saying he couldn't eat after he visited this and had to deal with this crime scene and this homicide and he said he cried for a week, which I believe him. I do believe him because it's that horrific, making it even more suspicious and even more obviously blatant, that they were just kind of ignoring and sweep, trying to sweep this event and condition that she was in under the rug.
Speaker 1:Her parents didn't announce her death to anyone. Like I said earlier, the neighbor didn't even know and he lived next door. They told, I think, through their attorney. They eventually told the press that she hadn't been to see a doctor since 2010 because she refused to go. She didn't want to go, she said.
Speaker 1:The parents decided to tell us that she was fully competent and could make her own decisions. But when they would suggest things like you need to go to the doctor or you need to get medical help, or you're going to die if you stay on this couch all of the things they say they said to her she would get defensive and argumentative. And I'm sorry, she's 90 fucking pounds. Are you kidding me? Sorry, sorry, okay, how does she get defensive and argumentative if she's non-verbal? Better question anytime they say they brought up a doctor visit, she refused and the dad was specifically quoted as saying because of her phobias and fears and social anxieties, the couch was her sanctuary, her comfort zone. I'm sorry, nobody wants to live in a freaking toilet. No worse than that even. I think it's closer to a port-a-john, port-a-potty the tank underneath it, that's what that's reminiscent of. Nothing about a port-a-potty rings sanctuary to me. I'm sorry, and I'm sure they went out of town because they couldn't deal with the smell inside the house. If they could have, I bet you she would have been in that house a lot longer.
Speaker 1:I have no doubt they said that her phobia eventually got so bad that she wouldn't even get up to go to the bathroom. That's why it had so much stuff all around it and in it and that they cared for their daughter, that Mama Sheila took care of her daily, or they even claimed that she had eaten what was it? Cheetos the night before. Hang on, I have it written here somewhere. The mom said that, yeah.
Speaker 1:So her mom sheila says that on january 2nd she ate half a sandwich in cheetos and that she last saw her daughter alive at 10 pm that night and then awoke in the chair in the living room to find her dead. She also stated that she cleaned her sores every night and that Lacey never complained about them hurting these same sores that were rotten to the bone, to the bone Filled with maggots, not just in the sores but in her hair. She had fecal matter and her hair was so matted that it had to be cut. The knots had to be cut out and removed with a scalpel at autopsy A scalpel to get out knots in her hair that are filled with dirt, fecal matter, urine. And her stomach contents, let me remind you, did not have Cheetos or a sandwich in it. It had foam from the freaking couch and it had freaking feces. So tell me again how you were taking care of her. Tell me again.
Speaker 1:Needless to say and I might have misspoke earlier they did technically announce her death. They put a one-liner on Facebook that said Mom and Dad love you so much and a very small, small obituary that I couldn't even find online. It's not on newspaperscom, so I didn't have it. However, that was it. They didn't make any formal announcements, they didn't do any kind of services, they didn't have a gathering of any sort in her remembrance. Basically, they just wanted it to go away. That's how it seems, but it didn't. Wbrz. Heavenly haloed angels that they are publicly announced. It made sure that everybody heard about it and also let everybody know that the grand jury would be meeting to either indict or, you know, not bill or not bill.
Speaker 1:And in in my journey through this case I actually was. I I had more digging to do because apparently the advocate wrote an interesting article that I read through, and in that article it said that the grand jury can indict, decline or quote, punt Like punt a football right. And it said some prosecutors have used them being the grand jury for cover to bury a politically sensitive case. Huh, that's interesting. Huh, that's interesting since how she was an alderman and worked part-time for the prosecutor's office and as a clerk for the police office and also was a stand-in mayor for a time before she resigned. Oh, you mean like that political, that kind of political where she had her hand in every single meeting all the way up until the time that her daughter actually was dead? Yeah, okay, cool, cool, cool.
Speaker 1:So, april 26th, they dropped the bombshell of the, uh, the crazy details that they had been able to ascertain from this case at that time. Um, may 2nd came by. The grand jury did indeed indict them. Now, a lot of the articles prior to may 2nd in the indictment they were talking about maybe cruelty to the infirm or something along those lines. However, because of the autopsy results, because of the reports that were given back by Dr Bickham, it was determined and they granted a true bill of second degree murder, both them, mommy and daddy. Now, to their credit which I don't want to give them any because it's ridiculous they immediately turned themselves, in same day or within the next day, within the 24 hours, um, mama fletcher got bonded out, but they didn't have enough money because the bonds were set at $300,000 a piece. So mom got out the first night, dad got out the next day, early the next day and this was May 2nd. Okay, it was not until June 2023, so a full year and change.
Speaker 1:Later that Judge, catherine Jones, got everybody in the courtroom and said I'm throwing out this indictment Now. Outraged was I. But then I read about it and I understood why she did it. Apparently the DA was trying some shady shit is what it sounds like to me that the language basically is what she was saying in the charging documents was faulty and that she was not going to proceed with these specific indictments. Also, they didn't have the foreman's signature on the indictment. Now, remind you, 850 plus maybe people, less than 900 people in this entire town.
Speaker 1:Where did that grand jury come from? People that have known these people their entire freaking lives? Of course they don't want to admit that they could do something like this, that they could allow something like this to happen, that the term severe chronic neglect, which means neglect over long stretches and periods of time that have led to this baby girl's death to someone who needed extra protection and care and love oh, she didn't want to. She balked at that, she got argumentative and refused to go. Okay, you failed Miserably. You have failed as a town and a community. You have failed.
Speaker 1:So signing that must have felt like signing their own death warrant in a way, because I'm sure every single one of them felt like why didn't we know? Why didn't we catch this? Because that's what I'm sure every single one of them felt like. Why didn't we know? Why didn't we catch this? Because that's what I'm thinking. That's exactly what I thought when I saw the, when Lenora sent this to me initially. How the hell did I not hear about this? And that's a lot of the reason, because this entire town wanted it to go away, not just the parents, not just the two people that were indicted. Because later, onune 19th, the grand jury reinstated the second degree murder charges with the corrected indictment forms.
Speaker 1:Both sheila and clay pled not guilty at that time and a little while later the district attorney's office decided to reduce it to manslaughter. In negotiations for a plea deal which which they did they did. They took a no-lo contendere, which is also the same as saying no contest. If anybody's ever got a traffic ticket, to have it adjudicated, you have to plead no contest or no-lo contendere. That just means that I'm not admitting guilt, but I'm saying that you guys probably have enough evidence to find me guilty, so I'm not going to take that chance. I'm going to take whatever deal you're offering to find me guilty. So I'm not going to take that chance. I'm going to take whatever deal you're offering, we'll go with that. So they took a plea on February 20th or, I'm sorry, february 5th of this year. She died January 3rd of 2022. They were allowed to take a plea to manslaughter in February, on February 5th. Then they delayed the sentencing. They gave them two weeks and a day to get their shit together before they had to come back and they delayed it. On the 20th of February they were sentenced to 40 years each, but 20 of those years were suspended.
Speaker 1:All the parents ever did was make excuses Every time they made any mention when they did, because what the da did? Because they didn't have the trial like they wanted, right, they didn't have the ability to make these people go through the embarrassment and the shame and every fucking thing. Oh, shit, sorry, every feeling that they should have had while this was happening. That should have been all the wake-up calls. They wanted some way to get their pound of flesh, as it were. They had their lawyer plead their case and said you know, they loved her so much they loved her to death. I'm sorry, sir, that's not a good way of putting that. It's just not, sir, that's not a good way of putting that. It's just not. It's not.
Speaker 1:Dr bickham, one of the, he's got a video that you need to go watch on my youtube. He's a he's a good guy. Good guy still not over it, obviously, um, but he said that the things that happened to Lacey they shouldn't have ever and that was repeated by pretty much everybody involved. But nobody should have had to have lived like that and that, being that involved in the community, they had so much help and so much backup and so much they could have done for her. I mean the mental health aspect in and of itself, okay. So at the sentencing they talk about the fact that she was 96 pounds at the time of her death she died of.
Speaker 1:The main cause was severe chronic neglect and sepsis. They did not. I didn't mention all of the things earlier. She was covid, positive, she had fecal matter and, um, the urine hole that she was sitting in, her feet were crossed underneath her and again she was in the couch, f fused to the couch. Her skin actually was pulling, almost like a sunburn peeling off of the couch when they were lifting and removing her body from there. The fecal matter itself was crushed into her face, chest, abdomen, and her hair was matted, knotted, filled with maggots, as was the hole, as were her wounds open, gaping wounds to the bone, bacterial infections, ulcers, multiple other medical problems. Her kidneys were failing. She was in a complete state of just unwell, and that's putting it the most lightly.
Speaker 1:This woman was in hell and her parents said, oh well, she just didn't want to go. This woman was in hell and her parents said, oh well, she just didn't want to go. They didn't want to. She didn't want to go, she didn't want to get up. She didn't. Every time, her world just got smaller and smaller because she got scared. And the reason I did come back across that part the reason she didn't want to go to the bathroom, is because she saw a commercial with a snake in the toilet. So she didn't get off the couch to go to the toilet.
Speaker 1:And instead of doing something proactive to save their daughter's life, to help her get better, to help her or at least have someone be there to be able to help her to work through these things, because they have specialists for that all of no, no, no. They said you know what. She's of sound mind, she can make those decisions. And the the only witness, like I said, that was testifying in their defense at the sentencing was a witness that said you know they I believe he's a psychologist, I can't find it right now but regardless, they had the superiority, the caregiving superiority complex, which basically just says that I could take better care of them than any doctor or nurse ever could. I know what's best for them. I am their mother, I am their father. I know what's best, which is ridiculous to think. I love my children. They are the absolute lights of my life, but you damn well better believe they get vaccines. They go to see the doctor when I feel like there's something outside of my ability to Tylenol or Advil, and I'm not taking a chance with their health, their life, because of my pride, because I think something different. Without ever even double checking, the doctors told Clay and Sheila that she was going to get worse, that it was not going to get better, that she needed to seek further help, specialized care, and they never did. The last time Lacey was seen by a doctor was when she was 16 years old.
Speaker 1:Severe, chronic neglect. There is no way that you can convince me, or that you will ever convince me, that these people did not know exactly what was happening. You can live in a state of delusion for so long, but it's unbelievable to me and the different factors that are involved, specifically when you're talking about the amount of, I don't know if it's double talk, I don't know what you actually. There's just no way, because you don't let someone get to this point of sinking into a hole that they have created with their body and not realize that they're not gonna survive much longer, and we're not even to survive much longer. And we're not even talking about the blatant, freaking lies. Oh, she had half a sandwich and Cheetos. No, she fucking didn't. She had sofa and feces. That's what she had for dinner last night.
Speaker 1:And then the DA drops the charges and then they have to redo the indictment because it's not clear, because the foreperson on the grand jury didn't sign the indictment or the bill. What are y'all doing? Not only did you allow these two. I don't understand. However, what I do understand is that eventually, I think in my mind it's not what they were due, but it was definitely at least a portion of what they owed, lacey, because what they should have done is they should have given her the time, they should have given her the energy, they should have given her the energy, they should have given her a fucking chance, and they didn't. They refused Because the easiest way to deal with it is to not deal with it. She was sane, she knew what she was doing. She was getting more and more nonverbal and was not talking towards the end. But you know, she just lost her energy because she refused to get up and get food. Or we would bring her food and she wouldn't eat it and she wouldn't get off the couch to go to the bathroom. You can pick her up, you can put her in a car. I guarantee you she can't fight back. How do you clean her every day? And her hair is so knotted they have to use a freaking scalpel to cut out the knots.
Speaker 1:Both Sheila and Clay were charged With manslaughter. They pled no contest. They accepted a 40 year sentence. 20 years of that was suspended. Good behavior, yada, yada, bullshit, bullshit, bullshit. But that was just in February of this year. So'll see what happens for somebody. For those two they should be around 66, 67. So it should be a death sentence.
Speaker 1:I really hope that whatever it was they were doing instead of taking care of their daughter was worth it. And I really hope that, even with me being as harsh as I have been because I have been there is no excuse, not in today's world, not in the world that we live in, when the resources are endless, especially for special needs and I say they're endless, it's not that we have so much manpower that we're just running out of people to treat. That's not what I mean. What I mean is there's always someone to talk to, there's someone, someone that can help, there's someone who can at least attempt to point you in the right direction. But you have to try. The effort has to be made, and here it wasn't Criminal neglect, chronic, severe neglect to the bone. They loved her to death.
Speaker 1:It's almost equally as disturbing as how the community just kind of swept everything under the rug and moved on for three months and didn't, didn't write about it, didn't tell anyone about it, didn't make it known publicly widely wbrz wouldZ, would I mean. Like if they hadn't done that article, would anybody have known? Would they ever have proceeded with charges? Would they have just swept it under the rug like everything else that they do in these small towns. I'm not being cynical, I'm being honest and that's all I have for you guys. Today there's no happy ending here. There's nothing good that came of this except for maybe the awareness in the future for anyone with a special needs child or with someone who's struggling to care for or provide for, there are resources, there is help and all of those people that can help. I have links to them in my show notes at the very tippity top on the episode blog on my website, also very tippity top on the episode blog on my website, also very tippity top any and all resources, special needs and things of that nature in the state of Louisiana and across the country.
Speaker 1:If you see something, say something. If you think someone needs help, I would much rather someone be pissed off at me because I called thinking that someone in their house needed help than to have something like this happen. If you haven't seen someone in five, six years and you haven't heard about them dying yet, that should have been a long time ago. It should have been a cause for concern or big red flag should have gone up. But to me this is batshit. No one saw this girl for over a decade and never thought to ask why we have to do better.
Speaker 1:Thank you, guys, so much for listening, thank you for coming back, thank you for believing in me and thank you for giving me something to let out all of my frustrations and rage and anger and um, I'm gonna keep them coming. I'm not giving up. Don't give up on me. Make sure you check out all the stuff and the resources in the bottom. If you feel like you need to share those, you are more than welcome to copy and paste. Please, please. We shouldn't have this happen to anyone, ever, ever again. We need to do better as a society and as a culture, and I know we can. I believe that. Thank you, guys. Take care out there.
