MADISON, W.Va. — A heartbreaking second day of testimony in the criminal trial of a Boone County grandmother painted a picture of missed opportunities and a family forever changed.
Donna Stone faces two charges, murder by a parent, guardian or custodian by refusal or failure to provide necessities and child neglect resulting in death, in connection to her 14-year-old granddaughter Kyneddi Miller’s starvation death in April 2024. State police found Miller’s body in an emaciated state at the family home in Morrisvale.
Kyneddi’s mother, Julie Miller, is serving a 15-years-to-life prison sentence after pleading guilty to child abuse by a parent causing death. Kyneddi lived in the home with her mother, Julie, Donna Stone, and Donna’s husband Jerry Stone. Jerry Stone was found incompetent to stand trial last year.
Numerous family members took the witness stand, along with members of law enforcement and Child Protective Services, on Thursday in Boone County Circuit Court.
Kyneddi Miller’s father
One of the witnesses during the morning session was Kyneddi’s father, Terry Miller. He testified that he was once married to Kyneddi’s mother, Julie, and Kyneddi was his daughter. When they split up and ultimately divorced in 2018, Terry said, he and Julie agreed to divide custody of Kyneddi to ‘every other weekend’ and holidays.
Kyneddi’s father stated that his daughter lived with him during Summer 2019. At that time, Kyneddi reportedly told Terry Miller she would prefer to live with him going forward. However, after he remarried in 2020, he testified there was never another mention by Kyneddi wishing to live with him.
Terry Miller said that his ex-wife Julie and the family permitted Kyneddi to attend his wedding to his now-wife. He said what followed was “parental alienation” as the family went “radio silent.”
“The lack of answering calls, not letting me come to pick her up, not answering emails, texts,” Miller described. “Excuses that Kyneddi just didn’t want to go outside, didn’t want to see anybody — not just me, other family members — just kind of keeping me at arm’s length.”
In the final years of his daughter’s life, he testified that his contact with the family was “95 percent Donna near the end.”
“Julie never answered for the last three-or-four months before Kyneddi’s passing,” Miller said. “She just never answered phones, never answered texts, never answered messages, never answered her door.”
As for what Donna Stone told him, Terry Miller said that she tried to deflect any concern that he shared.
“Trying to reassure me that Kyneddi was fine, she was healthy, she was just a shut-in,” Miller said. “Didn’t want to see anybody, but she was perfectly fine. Like verbatim, ‘she’s fine. She’s healthy, she just doesn’t want to see anybody’ and ‘I’ll see if she’ll call you.’ I never heard anything.”
He said that he didn’t have any reason not to trust Donna’s word, until he received calls from concerned family members.
Kyneddi’s education was one of the family’s chief concerns. After Kyneddi attended school remotely in 2020 and 2021 during the COVID-19 lockdown, Julie Miller reportedly filed a notice in Spring 2021 with the state to homeschool Kyneddi.
Terry Miller said that nobody had seen her for “months at a time.” He described March and April 2020, as concerns about the virus spread throughout the globe, as when it began to be “really bad.” There were concerns for her mental health, he said.
“Did you take any action to try to get some sort of help for her?” Boone County Prosecutor Dan Holstein asked him.
“I did, I set up a psych evaluation,” Miller replied. “I went to go get her and nobody was home.”
“Did you let them know that you were going to be there?” Holstein asked.
“Absolutely,” Miller said.
“Okay, and who did you let know?” Holstein wondered.
“Donna,” Miller said. “The second time, I set it up again, and informed them, ‘she’s on my insurance, it’s paid for, all you have to do is take them.’ She told a family member that I was calling Kyneddi ‘crazy’ when actually, I was just wanting to get her help and she never was taken to that.”
Terry Miller said the family “never initiated any contact.” He testified that he’d met with an attorney two times to see if there was a legal solution.
Donna Stone’s attorney, Tim Gibson, asked Terry Miller whether he’d called CPS before. Miller testified that he had, but admitted that he never contacted law enforcement or tried to file paperwork to change custody.
Kyneddi Miller’s second cousin
Mallory Stone, Donna Stone’s niece and second cousin to Kyneddi Miller, described herself as “very close” to the pair. Mallory Stone said she lived just down the street from Donna and Jerry’s home in Morrisvale.
The last time that Mallory Stone could remember seeing Kyneddi was around 2020.
Mallory Stone said that about once a month, Kyneddi would play with her kids. There were two attempts made by Mallory Stone to see Kyneddi again, she said. Mallory Stone testified that she brought her kids over to the home, but Kyneddi “locked her bedroom door” and refused to come out.
The second attempt, Mallory Stone said, didn’t make it past the front door. She said that she was told by the Stones that Kyneddi didn’t want to come out or see Mallory or her kids.
“She just said that ‘she just won’t see nobody,'” Mallory Stone remembered. “First, it was that she was scared to get COVID, and then she wouldn’t come around anybody because she was scared of her eyebrows, she was very self-conscious about her eyebrows. I remember that stuck out to me. Her mom told me that.”
Mallory Stone said she didn’t feel like Kyneddi was in danger because “I know my aunt and uncle and they wouldn’t hurt anybody.”
In 2020, when Mallory said she last saw Kyneddi, she didn’t appear malnourished. Mallory Stone said she was concerned that Kyneddi was potentially struggling with mental health issues, as “that runs in the family.”
When asked by Gibson, Mallory Stone said that Kyneddi was the one who refused to see the kids, despite efforts to bring her outside.
Donna Stone’s niece-in-law
One of the more emotional testimonies of the day was by Cassie Stone. Married to David Stone, Cassie said that Donna is her aunt-in-law. She testified that she and David live next door to Donna and Jerry.
Cassie Stone said that Julie Miller was on drugs and brought a lot of people into her “trailer.” She said that there were different men, that the Stones didn’t know, that came by. Cassie testified that Kyneddi was safer at Donna’s because of Julie’s reported erratic behavior.
“I had gotten really close to Donna when my mother passed away in 2020,” Cassie Stone said. “I actually looked at her as a mother. I tried to text Donna quite often. I would ask about Kyneddi and tell her that Isaac would want to come up and play.”
Cassie Stone said she asked Donna frequently about Kyneddi’s safety. Donna Stone reportedly responded by saying, “I think it’ll be okay.”
“I was always told that ‘Kyneddi was too scared of human germs,'” Cassie Stone said. “That’s what the text message would tell me.”
According to Cassie Stone’s testimony, Kyneddi didn’t like to be out of the house during the day. She said that Kyneddi had developed a consuming fear of COVID.
Despite Cassie and David testing for COVID and coming back negative, Kyneddi’s mindset reportedly didn’t change. Cassie Stone said that Donna told her that Jerry and Kyneddi were “very scared of COVID” and whether or not they would contract the virus and die.
Cassie Stone said she left it alone for a time.
Well child check
Cassie Stone said that windows all throughout the home were “blacked out.” She said that it was weird that a kid Kyneddi’s age didn’t want to come outside.
At the time, Cassie worked at Duval PreK-8 in Lincoln County. She said that she wanted to conduct a “well child check” on Kyneddi. Those types of checks are when child abuse or neglect is suspected, it gets reported to Child Protective Services, state police, or local police. She said that law enforcement then performs the check.
Cassie Stone said she knew that she wouldn’t be allowed into the house, and therefore couldn’t do it.
She made a call one day to the state police.
“I told them the whole story. I said, ‘I’m not saying there’s anything going on. I haven’t seen this little girl, physically seen this little girl since 2020. It’s now almost 2023.’ I said, ‘I’m really starting to get concerned about her. Nobody is seeing this little girl.'”
While there were claims that Kyneddi was being homeschooled, Cassie Stone didn’t believe that was the case. She said she wanted to have a police officer look at her and check in.
That officer was Charles Sutphin from the state police. He conducted that check on March 9, 2023.
“He told me that he went in, and he did talk to her briefly, but she wouldn’t pull the covers down from right here,” Cassie Stone said, motioning over her head. “Because he said she was too scared of getting sick. He told me that he was still extremely concerned, that he was going to CPS himself. So, a CPS referral was made at that point, according to the police officer.”
Sutphin now works at the West Virginia Division of Protective Services at the state Capitol. He said he spent 25 years with state police. He was the detachment commander for Madison in Boone County when Cassie Stone’s call came in.
Sutphin took the witness stand on Thursday as well. He said that the 2023 check occurred mid-afternoon, but the room was dark. Sutphin testified that the window was covered with “a shade or something.” After being warned by Donna Stone that Kyneddi was afraid of COVID, he said, the family allowed him and his fellow troopers in.
“She was laying in the bed, covered up, at which time we turned the light on and I made her physically get out of the bed and stand to where I could physically see her,” Sutphin testified.
“When you say she was covered up, describe to the jury what that means,” Holstein asked.
“Just covered up, head covered up and everything with a blanket,” Sutphin said.
“A blanket up above her chin, even higher than that?” Holstein asked.
“Yes,” Sutphin affirmed.
Sutphin said that Kyneddi looked normal at that time, and no red flags were raised about her physically.
“The only thing that really caught my attention and raised a concern with me was, it was kind of an ongoing obsession with COVID,” Sutphin said. “Talking about she didn’t want to catch COVID and just an ongoing dialect with that, that I thought was kind of odd for her age.”
Sutphin said that he left the residence, and immediately went to the Rock Creek Office of CPS. He said that he voiced those concerns to CPS, going there for the purpose of determining whether or not Kyneddi would qualify for counseling.
After he left the CPS office, he said he never got another call about Kyneddi until her death.
Cassie Stone said that, following the welfare check, she told her husband “I’ll give it a while.” However, if nothing changed, she said she would call again.
Stone said she never got that chance before receiving the phone call from her husband, informing her that Kyneddi was gone.
Markisha Cottrell with the state Department of Human Services testified as well. She said that a true referral has to go through the hotline, and Sutphin’s walk in wasn’t a referral. Cottrell said there were no referrals about Kyneddi up until her death. She said that no social worker had any contact from 2020 onward with Kyneddi Miller.
The trial resumes Friday morning, with the state set to bring two more witnesses to the stand.