(NewsNation) — The parents of Lacey Fletcher, a Louisiana woman whose body was found “melted” into a sofa, were sentenced to 40 years in prison each Wednesday, with 20 years of their sentences suspended, according to multiple reports.
Shelia and Clay Fletcher pleaded “no contest” last month to reduced charges of manslaughter in connection to the death of their daughter. The two were arrested in January 2022 after the discovery of Lacey Fletcher’s body, which prosecutors said weighed only 96 pounds.
The 36-year-old woman was found dead on a maggot-infested couch, sitting in urine and feces after what prosecutors alleged was neglect from her parents, NewsNation affiliate WVLA reports. Investigators think she was left to wither away for at least 12 years.
Lacey Fletcher had reportedly been diagnosed with autism, and her parents claimed they tried to feed her but she refused to eat, resulting in her inability to leave the couch and her subsequent death. However, District Judge Kathryn Jones rejected the parents’ claims and said Shelia and Clay Fletcher neglected their daughter and let her die, Daily Mail reported.
Former coroner Dr. Ewell Bickham, the coroner who examined Lacey Fletcher’s body, told NewsNation’s Ashleigh Banfield he struggled to process what he witnessed.
‘I’ve seen every kind of death there is,” said during an appearance Thursday night on “Banfield.” “I’ve never seen a homicide like this. I have never seen a human being literally tortured and allowed to die while she is alive. I’ve never seen that my life. … Lacey did not decompose. She rotted in her own body, in that hole, in that sewer, in the couch.”
She was about 16 years old when she disappeared from the public in 2002, the New York Post reported.