Pennsylvania officials said a missing 9-year-old girl who was reported missing on Wednesday was found dead on Thursday, leading to her foster mother’s arrest.
Renesmay Eutsey was found partially submerged in the Youghiogheny River, about 20 miles from her home in Dunbar. The Pittsburgh Gazette reported that Kourtney Eutsey, 31, led police to her adoptive girl’s body after a boy and two girls in the home claimed they witnessed her kill the victim.
According to KDKA, police were about to execute a search warrant when a child approached a trooper and apologized for lying earlier, stating, “I’m never going to see my baby sister again because she’s in heaven.”
Officers reportedly interviewed a girl who said they overheard Kourtney Eutsey and another adult talking about taking Renesmay Eutsey to a river “far, far away.” She claimed she heard the victim crying before witnessing Kourtney Eutsey and the other adult screaming at her and kicking her in the stomach, KDKA reported.
The girl alleged that the other adult punched her in the mouth because she witnessed the incident.
While the girl told police that she saw Renesmay Eutsey being placed in a bag, Kourtney Eutsey stated that she vomited and choked to death. Kourtney Eutsey said she did not call for help because the child was skinny and she had burned herself in the tub days earlier.
WPXI reported that Renesmay Eutsey had an intellectual disability. The victim’s mother said her daughter and three other children moved in with Kourtney Eutsey five years earlier as she dealt with drug addiction.
The mother admitted to losing custody, adding that she had not seen her daughter in four years.
Before she went with them, she had so much light in her eyes, and the fact that they did this instead of saying they couldn’t handle her anymore. They resorted to the worst possible thing that they could’ve done when they were supposed to protect her,” she told WPXI.
Renesmay Eutsey allegedly weighed 45 pounds and her body showed signs of abuse or neglect. Her injuries — including cigarette burns — were consistent with other accounts about what happened in the home, according to Fayette County District Attorney Mike Aubele.
“Sarah Shipley was the court ordered custodian of Renesmay [Eutsey],” the prosecutor explained, according to WTAE. “Kourtney Eutsey was the live-in caretaker in a relationship with Miss Shipley. Miss Eutsey had adopted at least one of the other children in the household. [Eutsey and Shipley] were in a relationship in which the children referred to Kourtney Eutsey as Mom and Sarah Shipley as Dad.”
Kourtney Eutsey was charged with homicide, abuse of a corpse, endangering the welfare of children, aggravated assault, tampering with evidence, and concealing the death of a child.
Aubele said the other three children were removed from the home. He said additional criminal charges are likely forthcoming.
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[Feature Photo: Pennsylvania State Police]
