Скачать или смотреть Judge delivers scathing remarks as mother sentenced in death of teen daughter

The mother of a 14-year-old Boone County girl who was found dead in a "skeletal state" was sentenced to prison Wednesday.

Julie Ann Stone Miller, 51, of Morrisvale, was sentenced to 15 years to life in prison for the 2024 death of her 14-year-old daughter, Kyneddi. If she is granted parole, she will be required to serve 50 years of supervised release.

Miller pleaded guilty to death of a child by a parent by child abuse during a November 2025 hearing.

“Kyneddi Miller’s life was taken just from sheer – I don’t know if it was selfishness or where it comes from, but for someone to kill their own daughter by means of not just a single act but a daily letting them waste away into nothing. The agony that must have felt for Kyneddi and caused – suffering alone, essentially,” Boone County Prosecuting Attorney Dan Holstein said during the sentencing hearing. “We know the last several days she was on the bathroom floor alone.

It goes against the instinctive nature that we all have – even animals have – to care for their young."

Miller spoke on behalf of herself during the hearing, expressing sorrow over Kyneddi’s death in a tearful address.

“I love my baby. I loved every second I had with her,” she said. “I miss her every second of every day. She was my world and was the best little girl since day one.”

Kyneddi Miller was found dead on the bathroom floor of a home in Morrisvale on April 17, 2024. Investigators described the girl's condition as "emaciated to a skeletal state."

During that November plea hearing, Holstein laid out graphic details regarding the condition Kyneddi was in when her grandmother called 911 to report she was in cardiac arrest. Holstein said the teen lay dying on the bathroom floor for at least four to five days.

"To put it in perspective, she was 5'3" and weighed only 58 pounds," Holstein said during the hearing, saying that the refusal and failure to get the teen, whose body mass index was 7.1, medical care directly led to her death. Holstein said a healthy BMI would be between 19 and 25.

He also said Kyneddi suffered from an undiagnosed eating disorder and had made comments in the last two days of her life that she wanted to die.

Court documents alleged Miller, along with her parents, Jerry and Donna Stone, failed to supply the teen with "necessary food and medical care during the months immediately preceding the death."

Miller faced a stricter penalty Wednesday because of Emmaleigh’s Law, legislation that was passed in 2017 that doubled the possible sentence.

In August, Jerry Stone was found incompetent to stand trial in the case and was committed to a mental hospital, while Donna Stone's trial, which was originally scheduled to begin Monday, has been delayed.

The case marked a turning point in West Virginia, exposing widespread breakdowns in the state’s child protection system and prompting major scrutiny of how abuse and neglect cases are handled.

Documents obtained by Eyewitness News showed child protective services knew or should have known about Kyneddi more than a year before her death.

In November, a federal audit found the state did not comply with 91% of investigation requirements when responding to reports of child abuse and neglect.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General said news coverage of the teen's death prompted the audit that sampled 100 of 23,759 of West Virginia’s screened-in family reports of child abuse and neglect from Oct. 1, 2023, through Sept. 30, 2024.

The West Virginia Department of Human Services, now led by Secretary Alex Mayer, appointed earlier this year by Gov. Patrick Morrisey, said it is committed to correcting the failures.

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