Sentenced: Recluse Daughter Dies On Parents’ Living Room Sofa With Severe Sores and Maggot-Filled Hair

[Sugar Cookie]

THE rotting remains of a reclusive 36-year-old were found on a feces-covered couch as her parents are accused of neglect.

Lacey Ellen Fletcher's body was found sunken into her family's living-room couch, weighing just 96 pounds. Now, her parents may face murder charges.

On the morning of January 3, Sheila Fletcher called 911 after discovering her daughter's body. Deputies entered the home to a "strong stench," District Attorney Sam D'Aquilla said.

Lacey Fletcher, of Slaughter, Louisiana, died at her parents' home after she had been anchored to a living-room couch for an undetermined amount of time.

Her body was found surrounded by feces and urine. She had worn through the couch's upholstery, according to D'Aquilla.

Lacey was also found with severe ulcers on her underside. She was suffering from bacterial infections and was positive for Covid, Dr. Ewell Dewitt Bickham III, the East Feliciana Parish Coroner, found.

Bickham ruled the woman's death a homicide. He told WAFB, “Her cause of death stems from at least a decade of medical neglect.”

Her parents, Sheila and Clay Fletcher, have not been formally charged with a crime, nor have they been arrested. But D'Aquilla is set to ask a grand jury to bring charges against them.

“The caretakers just let her sit on the couch. She just urinated and used the bathroom on the couch,” D’Aquilla said. “It was so horrific.”

He plans to ask a grand jury to charge Lacey's parents with second-degree murder.

In addition to second-degree murder, the Fletchers could also be charged with manslaughter, cruelty to the infirmed, or negligent homicide, D'Aquilla told WAFB.

D'Aquilla said it is unclear if anyone but Lacey's parents saw her in the years leading up to her death.

Lacey Fletcher suffered from a disability, her parents said in an interview with detectives on January 18.

Lacey was home schooled from the time she was in high school and experienced severe social anxiety as a teen, her parents said.

The Fletchers also stated that their daughter refused to leave the living room couch.

They claim to have brought Lacey her meals, even saying that she would urinate and defecate in towels or on the floor, as she was afraid to leave the couch.

The Fletchers also claim that Lacey had not seen a doctor in 10 years because she had not been ill.

D'Aquilla says the couple claimed Lacey was “of sound mind to make her own type of decisions.” Sheila Fletcher even claims to have regularly cleaned her daughter's sores.

Recluse's body found 'in couch crater' as caretaker parents may face charges

THE rotting remains of a reclusive 36-year-old were found on a feces-covered couch as her parents are accused of neglect. Lacey Ellen Fletcher’s body was found sunken into her family’s …

www.thesun.co.uk

Lacey Fletcher's feet were crossed under her, sunk deep into the hole she’d worn through the upholstery and foam padding. The hole was filled with stool and urine. Severe ulcers covered her underside, which appeared “rotten to the bone” in photos, D’Aquilla said. Fecal matter was crushed into her face, chest and abdomen. Her hair was matted, knotted, and filled with maggots.

Following an autopsy, Dr. Ewell Bickham III, the parish coroner, ruled Fletcher’s death a homicide and pressed for an investigation, D'Aquilla said. Bickham declined to provide any information on the death, citing an ongoing investigation, and he did not respond to a public records request for the coroner’s report.

D’Aquilla, though, said the coroner found Fletcher died of “severe chronic neglect,” citing the ulcers, bacterial infections and other medical troubles. She weighed 96 pounds and also was positive for COVID-19, he said.

“The question on everybody’s mind is, how could they be caretakers living in the house with her and have her get in a condition like that?” D’Aquilla said. “It’s cruelty to the infirm. We can’t just let it sit.”

After 'horrific' death at home, parents of Louisiana woman may soon face murder charges

The scene that East Feliciana Parish deputies found on Jan. 3 at the home of a town alderman in Slaughter spelled untold misery.

www.nola.com

 

[Satanica]

Looks like they never did anything on her behalf at all. Unbelievable.

 

[Totemic]

It wasn't that she was reclusive, it was the fact she was "anchored" (which to me reads "grafted") to the couch.

 

[MildlyMedicated]

You would at least throw out rotted meat. They did not even bother to recognize her as a sentient being.
She literally became a piece of rotted furniture.
She was their child, did they not feel?
I believe if my child (or any human) suddenly decided they could not move, even to use the bathroom and eat, I would be calling for help! They said no doctor because she had not been sick??????????????
WHAT DO THEY DEEM AS SICK? Your kid suddenly became unable to FUNCTION!
Damn just damn

 

[Babs]

"Bickham ruled the woman's death a homicide. He told WAFB, “Her cause of death stems from at least a decade of medical neglect.”

It seems to me that the parents just did not address their daughter's psychological problems from the beginning. Why??

 

[DeeDee]

Of sound mind to make her own decisions? Her decision was to shit on the couch then lay in it. How in the fuck did these people just decide that was Ok?

She should have been medicated and moved to a treatment facility to help with the agoraphobia not just left to literally rot to death.

They had to have been going into that room and seeing her condition because she didn't catch covid from the couch.

I think murder is right. They let her lay there and die so they wouldn't have the burden of a mentally ill daughter anymore.

 

[BBBLUE77]

"the couple claimed Lacey was “of sound mind to make her own type of decisions.”

Yup. 'Cause being grafted to my couch, sitting in my own piss and shit, matted with maggots, with bedsores to the bone, afraid to move off of the deathbed that is the living room couch sounds like a completely sane, logical person. M'kay.

GTFOH with that!

 

[Sugar Cookie]

Not right but maybe the parents are elderly and or mentally ill as well.

Because letting someone shit on your couch says a lot about you.

 

[Turd Fergusen]

She wasn't a "recluse" she had Locked-in Syndrome.

So fucked up.

The well-respected parents of a woman who suffered from Locked-in Syndrome and was found dead fused to a living room couch, covered in insects and her own bodily fluids are facing second-degree murder charges.

Shelia, 64, and Clay Fletcher, 65, will face a grand jury Monday after their 36-year-old daughter Lacey Ellen was found partially naked, sitting upright and submerged in a hole in a couch covered from head to toe in urine, liquid feces and insect bites, with live bugs and rodent excrement nearby at their otherwise tidy home in Slaughter, Louisiana, East Feliciana Parish Coroner Dr. Ewell Dewitt Bickham III told DailyMail.com on Thursday.

'The scene was sickening. I've seen some horrible things in my life but nothing like this,' said Bickham, a medical worker since the 1970s, adding that she had bed sores that went all the way down to her bone.

Woman, 36, with Locked-in Syndrome was found dead FUSED to a couch

Lacey Ellen Fletcher, 36, was found dead in her parents' home in Slaughter, Louisiana in January. She suffered from a nuerological condition that left her trapped in her own body.

www.dailymail.co.uk

 

[Khadijah]

She wasn't a "recluse" she had Locked-in Syndrome.

So fucked up.

Woman, 36, with Locked-in Syndrome was found dead FUSED to a couch

Lacey Ellen Fletcher, 36, was found dead in her parents' home in Slaughter, Louisiana in January. She suffered from a nuerological condition that left her trapped in her own body.

www.dailymail.co.uk

Locked-in syndrome, also known as pseudocoma, is a condition in which a patient is aware but cannot move or communicate verbally due to complete paralysis of nearly all voluntary muscles in the body except for vertical eye movements and blinking. The individual is conscious and sufficiently intact cognitively to be able to communicate with eye movements. Electroencephalography results are normal in locked-in syndrome. Total locked-in syndrome, or completely locked-in state, is a version of locked-in syndrome wherein the eyes are paralyzed as well. Fred Plum and Jerome B. Posner coined the term for this disorder in 1966.

 

[Sugar Cookie]

 

[Babs]

View attachment 75514
View attachment 75515

OMG!

 

[Totemic]

Jesus christ... 12 fucking years of being on that couch, they didn't fucking bother to get her a medical bed or anything.

Grand Jury my ass... just fucking execute them.

 

[Donut Whisperer]

Locked-in syndrome, also known as pseudocoma, is a condition in which a patient is aware but cannot move or communicate verbally due to complete paralysis of nearly all voluntary muscles in the body except for vertical eye movements and blinking. The individual is conscious and sufficiently intact cognitively to be able to communicate with eye movements. Electroencephalography results are normal in locked-in syndrome. Total locked-in syndrome, or completely locked-in state, is a version of locked-in syndrome wherein the eyes are paralyzed as well. Fred Plum and Jerome B. Posner coined the term for this disorder in 1966.

Would it be locked in syndrome if she could get on the floor to deface and she was still eating? I personally think the parents were too lazy to take care of her and once she starting using the couch for her toilet/bed they were too self serving to call for help because they knew they’d be charged with a crime. I bet they won’t be too lazy to fight for their own freedom now that they allowed their daughter to lie in filth and die. It’s awful to think how much pain she must have endured. Even a facility where she only got physical care would have been paradise compared to what her own parents did to her. That beautiful, smiling picture is haunting.

 

[Sugar Cookie]

Two Louisiana parents accused of neglecting their daughter to death have been indicted on murder charges.

As prosecutors wanted, a grand jury in East Feliciana Parish, Louisiana, returned charges of second-degree murder against Sheila Fletcher and Clay Fletcher on Monday. Law&Crime confirmed the development with a court staffer and later 20th Judicial District Attorney Sam D’Aquilla.

The parents were previously accused of neglecting their daughter Lacey Ellen Fletcher, 36, by leaving her on a couch—possibly for years. Fletcher’s body bore a hole through the upholstery and cushion, authorities said. The hole was filled with feces and urine. Authorities reportedly said there was fecal matter shoved into Fletcher’s face, chest, and abdomen, and that her hygiene was so neglected that were maggots in her matted, knotted hair.

Even East Feliciana Parish coroner Dr. Ewell Dewitt Bickham III voiced disgust at the scene.

“I couldn’t eat for a week, and I cried for a week,” he told Baton Rouge-based ABC affiliate WBRZ in a Tuesday report.

It was unknown when the couple last moved their daughter, said D’Aquilla, according to NOLA.com.

“She just urinated and used the bathroom on the couch,” he said. “It was so horrific.”

The Fletcher parents allegedly maintained to investigators that their daughter developed “some degree of Asperger’s syndrome of 9th grade when she started being home schooled,” and they insisted that it was she who decided never to leave the couch and instead went to the bathroom on the couch or a nearby towel, according to NOLA.com

Sheila Fletcher allegedly maintained that she routinely cleaned her daughter’s sores, and her daughter never complained about them.


“On a murder, you have to have intent,” D’Aquilla has reportedly said. “Did they want to kill her? I want to say yeah, they wanted to kill her.”

It was previously reported that Lacey lived with locked-in syndrome, but D’Aquilla told Law&Crime in a phone interview on Monday that Fletcher lived with a mental health issue that got progressively worse and the parents failed to step in. She had symptoms of autism when she was 16 years old.

“And then I think she didn’t want to get out of the living room, or get off the couch,” he said.

The family went to the doctor in appointments between 2000 and 2002, he said, and then had a follow-up appointment in 2010, in which the parents said their daughter was getting more reclusive. D’Aquilla said they could have found ways to step in, such as going to the coroner to get Lacey committed for treatment.

“I guess the parents just got accustomed to it,” he said, but added he did not know how anyone could get accustomed to the feces on her. He also said that Lacey’s bedsores were all the way to the bone.

The Fletcher parents’ attorney Steven Moore has said the couple was not invited to Monday’s grand jury hearing.

“They don’t want to relive the pain of losing a child through the media,” he told WBRZ in a report last week. “They have been through a lot of heartache over the years. Anyone who had lost a child knows what it’s like.”

Grand Jury Indicts Louisiana Parents for Allegedly Leaving Their Daughter to Die on Couch While She Was Covered in Feces and Maggots

Two Louisiana parents accused of neglecting their daughter to death have been indicted on murder charges.

lawandcrime.com

 

[McDanel]

Jesus christ... 12 fucking years of being on that couch, they didn't fucking bother to get her a medical bed or anything.

Grand Jury my ass... just fucking execute them.

Death penalty.

 

[Busy Bee]

No, Lacey was very I’ll, unable to get to the toilet. The parents have to be mentally I’ll to let her get to that state! The bed sores, the maggots and insects feeding on her body, no Lacey was NOT capable to make any decisions! They must not have visitors. as the smell coming from that would have been horrible! No the moment my couch got wet on would mean it would only happen that once! They should a mental health evaluation ! They had to know she couldn’t live like that!

 

[Alxprkrkrls]

For a coroner to say he couldn’t eat and that he cried for a week it must’ve been just gruesome on a level we could never imagine. That poor poor thing. My cousin has Asperger’s, and he’s perfectly functional. He’s got a job, a wife and a house. There must’ve been something else going on, and if they’d ever taken her to get some help they’d have known

 

[Hermy]

Would it be locked in syndrome if she could get on the floor to deface and she was still eating? I personally think the parents were too lazy to take care of her and once she starting using the couch for her toilet/bed they were too self serving to call for help because they knew they’d be charged with a crime. I bet they won’t be too lazy to fight for their own freedom now that they allowed their daughter to lie in filth and die. It’s awful to think how much pain she must have endured. Even a facility where she only got physical care would have been paradise compared to what her own parents did to her. That beautiful, smiling picture is haunting.

100%!!
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<<<“They don’t want to relive the pain of losing a child through the media,” he told WBRZ in a report last week. “They have been through a lot of heartache over the years. Anyone who had lost a child knows what it’s like.”

Steven Moore is trying to dilute his clients' responsibility. What they don't want to "relive" is being publicly held accountable for their failure to act. As for "anyone who has lost a child" most people who have lost a child didn't leave that child in filth and suffering for years and years. Moore's attempt at diminishing the role they played in their daughter's demise is beneath contempt!

 

[Sugar Cookie]

 

[MildlyMedicated]

Their faces just scream "We did nothing" "We are pillars of this community" "How dare you"

 

[Brillig]

I have a friend with significant social anxiety. Her family seems to cater to most of her whims, whether or not they are reasonable, to avoid a meltdown. Maybe this family was similar but more extreme, both in the daughter's level of anxiety, and the parents willingness to do what she prefers.

Obviously, they should have sought significant mental health help for her years ago, but I doubt they intended to kill her. Just too much catering to her mentally ill whims, even when it caused her harm.

 

[wgboots]

I haven't been able to stop thinking about this story since I first read it a few weeks back. Of course it's physically disgusting enough to be unforgettable, but what's been haunting me are the questions of how and why they let it get to this point. This person was clearly suffering from severe mental ailments of which we'll never know the full extent, but she could have been helped. She may have been unable to seek the care she needed, but they effectively watched her slowly commit suicide in their living room with all the power in the world to seek help for her. They had so many other options and they chose to do nothing.

My older brother has schizophrenia and didn't get diagnosed until his mid-twenties. His mental health took a dive during his junior year of college when he dropped out due to suicidal ideation, but it had always been a consistent problem in our household. Kind of an underlying dread for as long as I can remember: Something's wrong with my big brother. Of course now, with proper diagnoses and meds, any memorably odd behavior is understandable. But at the time, when he first dropped out of college and came home, it caused a lot of instability. We were constantly stressed out and it defined a large portion of my life. However, after years of trial and error, of sleepless nights, of expensive psych stays, etc., he now has an apartment and a dog and huge support system. My point is that while it can be incredibly difficult to find the right type of care for deeply sick people, it's cruel to not even try when you're able and it's someone you supposedly care about.

They ignored their sick daughter until she became a piece of rotting furniture in their living room. That's gonna stick with me for a while.

 

[Sugar Cookie]

Louisiana parents accused of neglecting their adult daughter to the point that she “melted” into a couch have been indicted on murder charges for the second time, authorities recently announced.

Lacey Ellen Fletcher, 36, is believed to have suffered from nearly complete paralysis – a condition referred to as “locked in” syndrome. On Jan. 3, 2022, she was found dead on her parents’ 1960s-style couch at the family’s home in Slaughter.

On May 8, the Fletchers’ defense attorney, Steven Moore, filed a motion to quash the indictments against his clients, arguing the DA’s office served documents that were different from those filed with the local court clerk. Moore said there were six mostly small, but material, differences between the court papers, according to The Advocate.

“In sum, the indictment in the record is either a substitute or a different indictment returned by the grand jury,” Moore reportedly wrote, in a copy of the defense motion obtained by the paper.

One of those amendments, however, which was written by hand, added language from a law regarding cruelty to the infirm. And that addition, Moore said, was an untoward effort to “create a new crime.”


“The District Attorney seeks to convict the Fletchers of second-degree murder by improperly amending the indictment so the State can attempt to convict by a lesser burden,” the defense attorney wrote.


A court agreed.


On May 30, District Judge Kathryn “Betsy” Jones tossed the second-degree murder indictments against the surviving Fletchers due to defective language in those charging documents.


Undeterred, D’Aquilla promised to convene a second grand jury on June 19 – the same day the defendants’ trial was originally set to begin. He told the Advocate that the new indictments would nix the language from the cruelty to the infirm law. The DA also predicted the process would play out quite a bit quicker now because the defense had previously been apprised of all the state’s information in the case.


According to Baton Rouge-based CBS affiliate WAFB, citing D’Aquilla, the court denied two other reasons to dismiss the indictments – based on an alleged lack of specific intent and a missing signature. But one reason was enough.


On June 19, the couple were indicted again, the DA said. They were then re-arrested and were quickly able to make bond again.


“We will ensure there is justice for Lacey and the public knows that caregivers will be charged for neglecting or abusing a person in their care,” D’Aquilla said in a statement obtained by The Advocate.

Parents re-indicted on murder for sick daughter who melted into family's couch while starving

The woman was found covered in feces, emaciated, her body riven with ulcers. A human-sized hole was worn down into the couch where she allegedly sat – and relieved herself – for several years.

lawandcrime.com

 

[Crazy Cat Lady]

I hope the second time is a charm.

 

[Exodus]

Locked-in syndrome is a rare disorder of the nervous system. People with locked-in syndrome are: Paralyzed except for the muscles that control eye movement. Conscious (aware) and can think and reason, but cannot move or speak; although they may be able to communicate with blinking eye movements.

So she was most likely awake and aware of everything going on around her in misery for those 12 years.

 

[Metalfan]

Ralph and choke,WTF!

 

[Ellen Brody]

I haven't been able to stop thinking about this story since I first read it a few weeks back. Of course it's physically disgusting enough to be unforgettable, but what's been haunting me are the questions of how and why they let it get to this point. This person was clearly suffering from severe mental ailments of which we'll never know the full extent, but she could have been helped. She may have been unable to seek the care she needed, but they effectively watched her slowly commit suicide in their living room with all the power in the world to seek help for her. They had so many other options and they chose to do nothing.

My older brother has schizophrenia and didn't get diagnosed until his mid-twenties. His mental health took a dive during his junior year of college when he dropped out due to suicidal ideation, but it had always been a consistent problem in our household. Kind of an underlying dread for as long as I can remember: Something's wrong with my big brother. Of course now, with proper diagnoses and meds, any memorably odd behavior is understandable. But at the time, when he first dropped out of college and came home, it caused a lot of instability. We were constantly stressed out and it defined a large portion of my life. However, after years of trial and error, of sleepless nights, of expensive psych stays, etc., he now has an apartment and a dog and huge support system. My point is that while it can be incredibly difficult to find the right type of care for deeply sick people, it's cruel to not even try when you're able and it's someone you supposedly care about.

They ignored their sick daughter until she became a piece of rotting furniture in their living room. That's gonna stick with me for a while.

Your story has moved me to tears. I know that sounds theatrical but I am very moved by your family. I am so glad for your brother that your parents helped him. I know firsthand how difficult frustrating and at times seemingly impossible it is to find real reliable help.finding a doctor and a therapist(one you like trust and feel comfortable with)once you like them then they are transferred so you go back to finding a new one.getting medication right takes FOREVER.Nobody answers the phone.Nobody calls back.the doctor you have? gone. so you have to find a new doctor.that’s the beginning. I’m getting a twitchy eye just thinking about it.Your parents walked through fire for him and now he is a WHOLE person.I’m so sorry that it made your life so chaotic.You guys didn’t throw him away. He was sick and it wasn’t his fault.You all understood that and you helped him get better.Unconditional love and support is so unbelievably powerful!! I wish more people could understand that.We don’t want to be the way we are.we hate feeling like a burden, a cross to bear.We hate ourselves.That’s what it looks like when you’re loved. I have never felt that from my parents.It’s like trying to imagine you’re in incredible pain when you’re not.You can’t. I try to imagine what unconditional love feels like. I can’t. I am very happy for him I’m so glad he has a real life. I’m so glad you’re a strong family who loves and supports each other.The world isn’t so scary when you know who’s got you. You guys are all so great I’m wicked glad there’s people like you out there. I apologize profusely for my rambling.

 

[Crazy Cat Lady]

Your story has moved me to tears. I know that sounds theatrical but I am very moved by your family. I am so glad for your brother that your parents helped him. I know firsthand how difficult frustrating and at times seemingly impossible it is to find real reliable help.finding a doctor and a therapist(one you like trust and feel comfortable with)once you like them then they are transferred so you go back to finding a new one.getting medication right takes FOREVER.Nobody answers the phone.Nobody calls back.the doctor you have? gone. so you have to find a new doctor.that’s the beginning. I’m getting a twitchy eye just thinking about it.Your parents walked through fire for him and now he is a WHOLE person.I’m so sorry that it made your life so chaotic.You guys didn’t throw him away. He was sick and it wasn’t his fault.You all understood that and you helped him get better.Unconditional love and support is so unbelievably powerful!! I wish more people could understand that.We don’t want to be the way we are.we hate feeling like a burden, a cross to bear.We hate ourselves.That’s what it looks like when you’re loved. I have never felt that from my parents.It’s like trying to imagine you’re in incredible pain when you’re not.You can’t. I try to imagine what unconditional love feels like. I can’t. I am very happy for him I’m so glad he has a real life. I’m so glad you’re a strong family who loves and supports each other.The world isn’t so scary when you know who’s got you. You guys are all so great I’m wicked glad there’s people like you out there. I apologize profusely for my rambling.

You’re not rambling at all. You’re sharing your feelings. You don’t ever need to apologize for that.

 

[Turd Fergusen]

Parents of Lacey Fletcher, woman found ‘melted’ to couch, plead no contest to manslaughter​

The Louisiana parents whose daughter’s body was found “melted” into a maggot-ridden couch have pleaded no contest to manslaughter — with prosecutors seeking 40 years behind bars for the horrific neglect.

The parents, who faced second-degree murder charges, pleaded no contest Monday to reduced charges of manslaughter, WBRZ reported.

Prosecutors will request the maximum sentence of 40 years behind bars, East Feliciana Parish District Attorney Sam D’Aquilla said, according to The Advocate. Their sentencing hearing has been set for March 20.

“The Fletchers are pleading no contest to the new charges. They had no choice. This is an open-and-shut case — they allowed their daughter to suffer unbearably on that couch,” D’Aquilla told the Daily Mail.

Parents of Lacey Fletcher, woman found ‘melted’ to couch, plead no contest to manslaughter

A Louisiana couple whose daughter’s body was found “melted” into a couch after she sat in it for up to 12 years in a horrific case of “acute medical neglect” has pleaded no contest to manslaughter …

nypost.com