Foster parents held for court in homicide of 9-year-old girl, abuse of two others
The Fayette County foster parents charged in the death of 9-year-old Renesmay Eutsey and the mistreatment and abuse of two more children in their care were held for court on all charges after a preliminary hearing Friday afternoon.
Testimony against Kourtney Eutsey, 31, and Sarah Shipley, 35, both of Dunbar, lasted for close to three hours.
The two were arrested in September, shortly after police found the 9-year-old’s body partially submerged in the Youghigheny River.
They had originally told police Renesmay had wandered away after being put to bed, a claim originally corroborated by an 11-year-old girl in the home. But she told a family friend, and later state police troopers, that she had heard an altercation with one of the women yelling at Renesmay and kicking her in the stomach.
Erica Umensatter of Dunbar, a friend of Shipley’s who came to the house after being told of Renesmay’s disappearance, recalled the girl telling her “that Mommy” – the children’ s term for Eutsey — “put Renesmay into a tote, and Mom told her to go in the bedroom, and that she would be back.”
Investigators found phone records showing Eutsey’s device had traveled toward Perryopolis on the morning of Renesmay’s disappearance, and that Shipley had transferred gas money to Eutsey.
Trooper Thomas Hisker, who later spoke with the girl, said she had talked about missing her sister.
“She apologized for not telling the truth sooner, and that she was afraid she’d wind up dead like Renesmay,” he said.
Troopers testified that Eutsey later took them to the location in the Youghigheny off an isolated back road where she had placed the tote containing Renesmay’s body, weighed down with rocks.
Police said Eutsey told them Renesmay had died after vomiting and choking, possibly as the result of infection in a burn she’d received in the bathtub the week before.
Eutsey told police she had performed CPR on Renesmay for 20 to 30 minutes to revive her.
“She told the investigator she was scared of losing the children, so she placed the child in a garbage bag,” Trooper Joshua Spyra testified.
The two parents are also accused of subjecting the 11-year-old girl and a 6-year-old boy to a prolonged period of physical abuse and malnourishment.
The 6-year-old weighed 24 pounds after what Margaret Russell, a pediatrician with UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh, said met the clinical definition of torture. She evaluated the children after they were removed from the home.
At the age of 6, she said, the boy was smaller than his 2-year-old brother and his 3-year-old sister.
“This would not have been an acute presentation … his weight was lower at his presentation than it was a year or more prior,” she said.
The 11-year-old girl told police Eutsey and Shipley had beaten and choked her, as well as verbally abused her, comparing her to a “rat” for the short haircut they gave her, troopers testified.
The foster parents had also denied the girl medical care, Russell said. In one instance the girl described, Shipley pulled out a tooth with rusty pliers rather than going to the dentist, leaving a fragment remaining in her mouth.
The girl, who was home-schooled, had also been neglected academically, and was still unable to read, Russell said.
“She described asking for help with education, and not being given that by her caregivers,” she said.
Family members as well as state troopers dabbed their eyes at times during testimony Friday. Shipley visibly cried throughout much of Friday’s hearing, while Eutsey looked downward.
All four surviving children, also including a 2- and 3-year-old, were placed in foster homes outside of Fayette County.
Eutsey’s attorney, Chief Public Defender Nicholas Clark, pointed to the lack of autopsy or established manner of death, and the girl’s shifting account of how Renesmay left the house.
“There is no non-hearsay testimony to establish that my client killed Renesmay Eutsey,” he said.
In an interview after the hearing, District Attorney Mike Aubele said DNA results and an autopsy report had not come in by the time of the hearing, but were being pursued for a potential trial.
“We don’t want to delay this process,” he said. “We want to move this thing forward. So we didn’t wait for it, because we have substantial evidence that this was an intentional act.”
That evidence, he said, included indications of bleach and the presence of blood in the room where one of the children said she was beaten.
Aubele said the change in the girl’s account of Renesmay’s disappearance could be explained by undue pressure put on her by her foster parents to back up their story.
“That is the only inconsistency, and that is the inconsistency that was rectified once they were out of the presence of the parents and felt safe enough to tell us what really happened,” he said.
District Judge Nathan Henning held all charges against Eutsey and Shipley. Both face identical charges in Renesmay’s death regarding criminal homicide, endangering welfare of children, aggravated assault, concealing the death of a child, tampering with physical evidence and abuse of a corpse. Shipley is also charged with additional conspiracy charges for each count.
For the alleged crimes against the two other children, they are charged with aggravated assault and a related conspiracy charge, along with endangering the welfare of children, corruption of minors and simple assault.
The two are being held in Fayette County jail without bond.