Left and right image: Candi Royer appears in two booking photos; center: Khaleesi Cuthriell in happier times. (Augusta County Sheriff’s Office)
A second adult has been sentenced to spend her life in prison for the murder of a Virginia toddler who was sadistically tortured for several months before being literally thrown away in early 2021.
Candi J. Royer, 44, pleaded guilty to one count of murder in the first degree in September 2023. Just days before, in late August, Travis Brown, 32, was convicted on the same charge by an Augusta County jury. Brown was also convicted of felony murder, child abuse, child cruelty, concealing a dead body, and conspiracy.
Last week, Brown was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for the first-degree murder charge. He was additionally given a 20-year sentence on the child abuse charge.
Royer and Brown slowly killed 3-year-old Khaleesi Cuthriell after taking custody of the girl in October 2020, evidence during the trial showed. Khaleesi’s mother, Amanda Mullen nee Arey, had violated her probation and was forced into jail — leaving her to scramble for a suitable, and, she thought, temporary, custodian.
The intervention of child welfare authorities complicated matters.
Child Protective Services determined the girl could not live with her father, Ted Cuthriell, since Mullen had been living with him at the time of her arrest. The agency also nixed a request for Mullen’s sister to take her daughter due to an outstanding CPS case of her own. Finally, in what prosecutors described as a panicked decision, Mullen suggested the toddler go live with her friend — Royer. She had offered to babysit Khaleesi in the past. The arrangement made sense to CPS — Royer had a 3-year-old of her own. But she also lived with Brown.
Samantha Castelvecchi, the CPS employee in charge, drove the girl to 249 Cattle Scales Road in Waynesboro, Virginia, where she died just a few months later. Testifying on the first day of Brown’s trial, Castelvecchi said she “attempted to” check in on the child after dropping her off — but admitted she never did. When all was settled, the CPS agent said she did not know Brown was living with Royer.
“I thought she’d be safe,” Mullen testified through tears at Brown’s sentencing hearing, according to a courtroom report by Harrisonburg-based ABC affiliate WHSV. “I thought you were my friends.”
During Royer’s sentencing hearing on Thursday, prosecutors played a heartbreaking jailhouse phone call from Jan. 12, 2021.
“Mommy?” Khaleesi asks, according to a courtroom report by the Staunton News Leader. Mullen responds: “Baby?”
“I love you,” Mullen says near the end of the call. “I can’t wait to see you. Mommy misses you.”
“I love you, Mommy,” Khaleesi replies.
Later that same day, Royer filmed herself torturing the 3-year-old girl. A video played during Brown’s trial showed the child frightened, shaking, confused — forced to stand naked in her own feces in a bathtub.
“Khaleesi, stand up,” Royer can be heard saying on the footage. “I said stand up, Khaleesi.”
The cruelty pulses from the clip as the murderess at one point tells the 3-year-old girl: “No one likes you, Khaleesi.”
Mullen previously testified that before her daughter was forced by the state to live with Royer and Brown, she was “happy all the time.”
But by early January 2021, Khaleesi was thin to the point of being unrecognizable, an expert witness testified. She was covered in cuts and bruises, and her feet were swollen and purple. She had also been burned. Most of her hair was gone — the once-ever-smiling girl had been terrorized to the point of being nearly completely bald.
The distraught mom had tried to connect with her “sweet” and “smart” daughter several times before that, she told Brown’s jury. In March 2021, the girl’s mother sent her cousin, Daniel Mullen, with money and a cellphone to give to Brown and Royer. Later, she again sent her cousin with money to give them so they could talk.
But every time, she got another excuse.
“Everybody liked her,” Daniel Mullen said during his own tearful testimony — a pointed rejoinder to the vicious criticism the child received from the adult who had been entrusted to keep her safe.
“I didn’t necessarily feel another public display of this was necessary,” Augusta County Commonwealth’s Attorney Tim Martin said in court on Thursday — explaining the relatively short nature of the 3-hour-long sentencing hearing that sealed Royer’s fate.
Khaleesi’s mother was not in court while 54 images and the aforementioned video were entered into evidence due to the “heinous” nature of what was depicted, WHSV reported. But she did speak later on.
“54 pictures of what was done,” Mullen said in reference to those images of abuse and deterioration. “I didn’t know there were that many pictures. There are infinite pictures I’ll never take of my little girl.”
The defendant also took the opportunity to speak — insisting she did not kill the girl but admitting she played a part.
“I take full responsibility for my lack of action,” Royer said. “I loved Khaleesi and I failed her.”
The girl’s body has yet to be found.
Khaleesi was reported missing by her mother in September 2021. During the investigation into the girl’s disappearance, Brown told at least three different versions of the last time he saw the child.
In the end, Brown settled on a story where the girl accidentally died, absolving Royer entirely, and he panicked, wrapping her tiny body in a blanket and throwing her in the household trash.
Both defendants have refused to say where Khaleesi’s body might be found — claiming they have no knowledge of that final detail.
The judge overseeing the hearing was not convinced by Royer’s attempt at showing remorse — citing the child’s unknown location.
“Let me suggest to you that’s what remorse looks like,” the judge said before handing down the sentence.
Royer will be eligible for geriatric parole when she is 65.
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