An Indiana woman and her boyfriend have been charged with neglect of a dependent after the woman’s disabled 19-year-old daughter was found dead in conditions police described as “heartbreaking and unacceptable.”
Police and medical personnel were called to the home just after 11 a.m. on July 24, where they found Caleigh Lindsay dead at the scene, the Richmond Police Department said. They also found two juvenile children living at the home in “deplorable and unsafe conditions.”
The children’s mother, Liza Lindsay, and Daryl Grubbs were each charged with two counts of neglect of a dependent, police said on Monday.
“At this time, the cause and manner of death remain pending,” police said. “The Wayne County Coroner’s Office is continuing to review medical records, autopsy findings, and toxicology results before a final determination is made.” The preliminary autopsy report said she likely died because of a probable seizure due to a complication of Pitt-Hopkins syndrome, WXIN said.
Court documents say Caleigh Lindsay was found in a closed off room that resembled a “stall,” WXIN reported. The area was padded to about four feet high on all sides, and the walls all had holes, including the door.
Lindsay was found on the floor with about 12 used diapers around her, wearing a partially attached diapers. She and the walls were covered in a brown substance that appeared to be feces, the documents said.
Liza Lindsay told police that her daughter had been disabled her entire life. She was nonverbal, autistic, epileptic, wheelchair bound, and had microcephalic disease, mitochondrial disease, and Pitt-Hopkins syndrome. She had been on a feeding tube since the age of 10, her mother said.
The mother also said her daughter frequently had seizures and the holes in the stalls walls came from her hitting her head when she had seizures.
She said she last saw her daughter shortly before 11 p.m. the night before when she changed her diaper and gave her medications and fluids. Grubbs found the young woman dead the next morning. He said they waited several minutes to call 911 until the mother calmed down.
When police arrived, they were met by a strong odor they described as a combination of urine, feces, and garbage. Officers found rooms with piles of trash, fly strips covered in dead insects, and bathtubs filled with trash.
The Wayne County Health Department found ammonia levels in the house five times higher than what’s considered to be safe and black mold in the refrigerator.
According to Law&Crime, Lindsay bonded out of jail on Friday, but Grubbs was still behind bars on Monday.
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[Featured image: Liza Lindsay/Wayne County Sheriff’s Office]
