The parents of a woman who died after she “melted” to her couch were booked into prison Tuesday after pleading no contest to charges of manslaughter.
Lacey Fletcher, 36, was found rotting and “melted” into a couch at her family home in 2022, covered in insects and feces as she’d refused to move from the couch for potentially more than a decade. The furniture allegedly gave Fletcher bed sores down to her bone, amongst other horrific ailments that led to her premature death. Following the discovery of her body, Fletcher’s parents were arrested and initially charged with second-degree murder.
The couple, both 66, are believed to have let their daughter gradually waste away after visiting a doctor in 2010, claiming she refused to leave the house and the couch. They both denied second-degree manslaughter throughout the almost 18 months since their arrest, but pled no contest to charges of manslaughter, according to the New York Post.
REPORT: Coroner Says He Cried, Couldn’t Eat For A Week In Most Heinous Crime He’s Ever Seen | @DailyCaller https://t.co/xgarPfgcl3
— KAY SMYTHE (@KaySmythe) April 28, 2022
One of Fletcher’s ninth-grade teachers told the NY Post that, “she may well have had autism but that is no excuse for letting her rot away for years until she died,” noting that her mother may have been in denial about the condition. “Even if she was in some way resistant or difficult, that’s when parents call in the professionals. It’s not as if she moved out and was in her own home and wouldn’t let them help her. She was in their house! They weren’t helpless. There are resources. I just can’t understand this,” the teacher added. (RELATED: Father Of Brutally Murdered Child Beats The Hell Out Of Accused Murderer In Court Room)
Fletcher’s official cause of death was ruled as sepsis. She was extremely malnourished at the time of her death. “I’m still traumatized two years later,” former East Feliciana coroner Ewell Bickham told the outlet. “I have seen every kind of death and dead body in all my years of this work, but I’ve never seen anything like what happened to Lacey. No one deserves to suffer like that.”
A family friend told the NY Post she attended church with the Fletchers every Sunday for 25 years and had no idea they had a child. “Don’t tell me there was love there. They may have seemed nice but there was a terrible disgusting side to them. How could anybody do that to another human being much less your own child? There is no way you can sugarcoat this, no way. This is pure evil is what it is. Pure evil,” the friend stated.
Both parents were booked into East Feliciana Parish Prison on Tuesday, and full sentencing is expected in mid-March. They face up to 40 years behind bars for their crimes.