A West Virginia woman was sentenced to up to life in prison Wednesday in the death of her teenage daughter whose emaciated body was found in her home in a case that has drawn scrutiny of the state’s overburdened child welfare system.
Julie Miller He will be eligible for parole after serving 15 years for the April 2024 death of Kennedy Miller.
A criminal complaint stated that the 14-year-old had an eating disorder and that Julie Walker had not sought medical care for her daughter in at least four years. Kennedy Miller spent the last few days of her life alone on the bathroom floor and weighed 58 pounds (26 kilograms), Boone County Prosecutor Dan Holstein said.
“This child starved to death,” Boone County Circuit Judge Stacy Nowicki Eldridge said during sentencing. “No child should ever go through that.”
Julie Miller, 51, pleaded guilty in November to death of a child at the hands of a parent, guardian or custodian.
Two of the girl’s grandparents lived in the house in Morrisville. Jerry Stone has been found incompetent to stand trial due to decreased cognitive ability while Donna Stone faces trial next month on charges of child neglect resulting in death.
A federal audit released in November after the girl’s death concluded that the state did not comply with requirements to respond to reports of child abuse and neglect, including failing in most cases to interview children or adults or assess immediate safety risks.
The death also prompted a government investigation into whether law enforcement and child protective services could have intervened. The state Department of Human Services now requires that potential cases of abuse and neglect be referred to the reception phone number so they can be officially documented.
Several bills have been introduced during the current legislative session aimed at improving the state’s child welfare system. Governor Patrick Morrisey He pledged last year To release the results of child welfare investigations that were previously withheld from the public.
In June 2024, Brian Abraham, then-Republican Gov. Jim Justice’s chief of staff, said state police were called to check on the girl in March 2023 but found no indication she had been abused. One soldier then made an informal suggestion to the local human services office that she might be in need of mental health resources.
But no follow-up tests were conducted, according to Ibrahim. The policeman noted that the girl seemed healthy to him, but she said that anxiety about being around people due to the Corona virus made her not want to leave her home. Kennedy Miller last attended public school in 2021 and was homeschooling at the time of her death.
Under state law, parents of homeschooled students are required to take annual academic evaluations but do not have to submit them to the state until after the third, fifth, eighth and 11th grades. Failure to report assessments may result in the child’s education in the homeschool program being terminated and the district taking truancy action.
Local media reported that state records indicate the mother never provided the required evaluations for her daughter.