MADISON, W.Va. — A 12-member jury has unanimously convicted a Boone County woman on both charges for her role in her 14-year-old granddaughter Kyneddi Miller’s starvation death in April 2024.
The panel, comprised of 10 women and two women, found Donna Stone guilty on Monday of murder by child neglect and child neglect causing death. Kyneddi Miller was found in an “emaciated” state at the Morrisvale home two years ago by state police. Kyneddi lived at the home with Donna Stone and her grandfather Jerry Stone, with her mother Julie Miller next door.
The trial began last week in Boone County Circuit Court and included heartbreaking testimony from members of the Miller and Stone family. Julie Miller, who pleaded guilty to child neglect causing death earlier this year, testified on Friday and Monday. She told the jury that the family had become terrified of COVID during the lockdown and “thought the world was gone.”
During to numerous testimonies, Kyneddi didn’t even leave the home for the last couple years of her life. Aside from a wellness check by a state trooper in March 2023, Kyneddi may not have seen anyone in person other than Julie Miller, Donna Stone, and Jerry Stone since 2020.
That former state trooper, Charles Sutphin, testified that Kyneddi covered herself with a blanket during the 2023 wellness check and her room’s window was covered with a “shade or something.” While Sutphin said that he didn’t notice anything wrong with Kyneddi’s physical state, but psychologically there were some concerns.
He said that the teenager had an “ongoing obsession with COVID” even three years after the lockdown.
“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.
Julie Miller told the jury on Friday that she considered taking Kyneddi to the hospital before she died but said that Kyneddi rebounded and was doing “so good.” She claimed that she was going to take Kyneddi to the hospital on April 17 “as soon as she gets some sleep” but said that her daughter never woke up.
The harrowing trial included numerous plays of the 911 call that Donna Stone made once Kyneddi’s dead body was discovered in the bathroom, along with images of what Kyneddi’s body looked like after her death.
Boone County Prosecutor Dan Holstein reiterated during closing arguments Monday that Donna Stone was just as guilty as Julie Miller in seeing Kyneddi’s health decline, and not doing anything about it.
“We’re not God, we’re not sitting over, judging what her heart was,” Holstein said. “We’re not saying that she hated her granddaughter. We don’t have to prove it; it’s not the issue. The issue is, at that point in time, regardless of all that she may have done before, did she have a wanton disregard for human life and societal duty? Well, yeah, she did.”
Donna Stone’s attorney Tim Gibson argued numerous times throughout the trial that, while it was a tragedy, that “does not equal criminality.” He said that Donna Stone showed several times with her behavior that she cared for her granddaughter.
“If you intend for somebody to die from that lack of care, you are not calling an ambulance,” Gibson said. “That makes no sense at all. It’s common sense that, when you call an ambulance over 911, you are looking for somebody to try to save their life.”
Kyneddi’s father, Terry Miller, who divorced Julie Miller in 2018 and remarried in 2020, came to the witness stand last week as well. He testified that the family shut him out after COVID hit and, near the end of Kyneddi’s life, “95 percent” of the contact he had was with Donna. Terry Miller said that the last time that he saw his daughter was in 2020.
The trial also revealed that Kyneddi had slept in the same bed as Donna Stone until “five or six days” before her death.
Gibson said that Kyneddi living at Donna Stone’s home, rather than Terry Miller’s, should say something.
“When you also look at malice, Donna Stone opened her house up to Kyneddi Miller,” Gibson said. “She opened it up there. Terry Miller, nowhere to be seen, for four years with his daughter — according to his own testimony.”
Julie Miller pulled Kyneddi Miller out of public school in 2021 amid continuing online education. According to testimony, Miller filed paperwork with the state to homeschool Kyneddi. Family member stated in court that it was unlikely that Julie Miller ended up homeschooling her daughter once she was out of the public school system.
Gibson pointed the finger at Julie Miller for the decision to homeschool, in addition to the decision not to take Kyneddi to the hospital prior to her death.
“The people making those major decisions, you can infer that, when it came to the medical care, feeding, school; major decisions for Kyneddi Miller, Julie Miller was the final authority,” Gibson argued.
Holstein pushed back on the notion that Donna Stone had acted logically during Kyneddi’s decline.
“The only thing that I think was said that I hope eats at you is this contention that Donna Sue Stone’s behavior was reasonable, that her care for this child was reasonable,” Holstein said. “I don’t know what kind of world we’re living in if that’s reasonable.”
In his final words to the jury, Holstein implored the jury to convict Stone.
“Don’t forget about Kyneddi Miller back there, don’t forget about what she really looked like,” Holstein said. “Not on a piece of paper, but in that home and the decisions that were made, day after day, and what that meant for Kyneddi Miller. That’s what this case is about. I’ll ask you to find her guilty of both the child neglect in count two, and then when it got to that point, the neglect turned into an intentional malicious decision to not get medical care.”
The jury returns on Tuesday to determine whether or not to recommend mercy.
If they don’t recommend mercy, Stone will spend the rest of her life in prison with no chance for parole.