Inset: Liza Lindsay (Wayne County Sheriff’s Department). Background: The home where Liza Lindsay’s 19-year-old daughter was allegedly neglected and found dead last month (Google Maps).
A “wheelchair-bound” autistic teenager from Indiana was found dead inside a “padded” stall surrounded by used diapers, garbage, “sippy” cups, and feces — with her own mother allegedly putting her there, cops say. The mom claims her residence “looked the way it did because she has been depressed,” according to police.
Liza Lindsay, 41, of Richmond, is facing felony neglect charges in connection to her filth-ridden residence and treatment of her 19-year-old daughter, according to a probable cause affidavit obtained by Law&Crime on Monday. She and her boyfriend, Daryl Grubbs, are both charged with neglect and accused of also mistreating two other youths in the home, ages 13 and 15, who are identified as Lindsay’s two sons.
The family was living at 1313 South 10th Street when authorities received a call on July 24 about an “unresponsive female” — Lindsay’s daughter, per the affidavit. A detective with the Richmond Police Department describes what he saw that day in the charging document.
“When I entered the front door to the residence, I smelled a strong odor of what I can only describe as a combination of cat urine/feces and garbage,” the cop alleges. “Inside the front door, there was a short landing. The landing led to a set of stairs going down to an underground level and a set of stairs going up to an upper level. I started videoing from the underground level.”
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Detectives and officers had to allegedly sift through “approximately a foot of trash and other items,” while ducking “fly strips hanging from the ceiling covered with insects,” the affidavit says. The victim’s room had a “Minnie Mouse” photo on the door. She was said to have been “nonverbal, severely autistic, epileptic, wheelchair-bound, has microcephalic disease, mitochondrial disease, and Pit-Hopkins syndrome,” according to the affidavit.
“When I opened the door, I saw a dresser and a large pile of trash,” the detective alleges.
“There was a small television on the dresser with a large piece of Plexiglas in front of it,” he recalls, noting how there were “black spots on the walls and ceiling” that looked like “black mold,” per the detective.
“I was wearing a mask on my face, but I still found it hard to breathe due to the strong smell of what I can only describe as garbage, feces, and decomposition,” the cop says. “There were dirty diapers on the floor mixed in with the trash. The room had a closed-off area similar to a stall. The closed-off area was padded on all sides up to a height of approximately 4 feet. The walls on the inside of the stall had holes in them. There was a hole in the stall door. The door to the stall was open when I entered the room.”
It was 76 degrees inside the home at the time, according to authorities, and Lindsay’s daughter was found inside the stall, naked “except for a partially attached dirty diaper,” the affidavit says. “The walls of the stall were covered in a brown filth,” the detective alleges. “There was also a brown substance on the walls of the room.”
The Wayne County Health Department later found ammonia levels inside the residence reaching “9 ppm,” or parts per million, with the state’s minimal risk level being 1.7 ppm, according to police. Members of Indiana’s Department of Child Services (DCS) also responded to the scene and determined that the conditions inside the residence showed signs of neglect toward Lindsay’s two surviving children and took the teens into their custody, the affidavit says.
“Liza said her residence looked the way it did because she has been depressed,” the detective recounts. “Liza said she used to take medication for her depression, but doctors took her off the medication in January of 2025. Liza said her depression since worsened.”
However, when investigators looked up Lindsay’s medical records online, they allegedly found that doctors had not taken her off the medication she had been prescribed for her depression, according to the affidavit. Lindsay allegedly claimed during her police interview that her daughter had seizures and was known to hit her head on things during the medical episodes. She told cops that the last time she saw the teen was around 10:45 p.m. on July 23, the night before she died.
“Liza said [her daughter] had a seizure at that time that lasted approximately 1 minute,” the affidavit says. “Liza said she waited until [her daughter] came out of the seizure, then placed [her daughter] in the recovery position with her head facing west and her feet facing east at approximately 11:15 PM. Liza said she wished her other two children goodnight, then went to her bedroom downstairs. Liza said she stayed up watching Chinese dramas on her phone until sometime after midnight.”
Grubbs, who is described as being someone who “acted like the children’s stepfather,” was home at the time and allegedly found the victim. He is accused of neglecting her and the other children in the home. A friend of Lindsay’s spoke to police and alleged that Grubbs and her were both violent with the children.
Lindsay and Grubbs are both facing two felony counts of neglect of a dependent. They were both being held in Wayne County, with records showing that Lindsay bonded out on Friday. Grubbs was still locked up as of Monday.
