The Etna Green woman who was sent to prison for 16 years in August has lost her appeal to be sentenced to a lesser charge.
Jammy Stacy, 43, was convicted of Level 3 felony neglect of a dependent resulting in serious bodily injury by a jury Aug. 6. She appeared before the late Kosciusko Superior Court I Judge David Cates on Aug. 31, and he sentenced her to 16 years in the Indiana Department of Corrections – the maximum sentence punishable for a Level 3 felony.
Stacy was the third of the five people accused in the case to be sentenced at the time. Rune Springer, the boy’s mother, and Travis Tillotson, the boy’s stepfather, were both convicted of Level 6 felony neglect of a dependent earlier this year through plea agreements. They were sentenced to time served and probation, respectively.
Stacy’s aunt, Fayette Robinette, 60, of 9462 N. Ind. 19, lot 24, Etna Green, was convicted of a lesser charge of failure to report child abuse, a Class B misdemeanor. Robinette was initially charged with a Level 3 felony for neglect of a dependent. She was sentenced to non-reporting probation.
On Dec. 7, according to court records, Stacy’s mother, Annette Priestley, 60, of White Pigeon, Mich., was sentenced to 180 days in jail with all of it suspended for a lesser conviction of a Class A misdemeanor obstruction of justice charge. She had been facing the same Level 3 felony charge of which Stacy was convicted.
The case stems from a March 2, 2018, report of a 2-year-old boy named Vincent being severely abused and injured with broken bones literally from head to toe, bleeding on his brain and severe malnutrition that caused his body to grow facial hair in reaction. Stacy had been the sole caregiver of the boy since October 2017 to the date police discovered his condition in March.
Throughout the trial, Stacy contended she would have sought medical help for the child if the child would have been her own and told police she “didn’t know” if she could just take him to the hospital.” Investigators seemed surprised Stacy was ignorant to the fact that she could seek medical help for a child and told her “that’s the way the world out there works.”
Mari Duerring, Stacy’s attorney at trial and representing her in her appeal, argued in December that the Level 3 felony neglect of a dependent resulting in serious bodily injury conviction be knocked down to a Level 6 felony neglect of a dependent.
Throughout the appeal, Duerring argued that Vincent wasn’t actually seriously injured and said he didn’t need any medical treatment beyond really just being fed proper nutrients.
Duerring also argued that her client would not have known that Vincent needed medical care, because the doctors didn’t even know until they used CAT scan equipment.
In January, the supervising deputy attorney general of Indiana, Ian McLean, responded to the appeal and argued that not only were the injuries obvious to the child while he was in Stacy’s care but that Vincent suffers from disabilities and deformities to this day.
“Stacy’s admission that she ought to have sought medical care, and her dissembling about (Vincent’s) condition to (Rune) Springer, are also sufficient to prove that she was subjectively aware that she had endangered (Vincent) by denying him medical attention and subjecting him to malnutrition. These facts are joined, in addition, by videos taken by Stacy herself which document ‘zombified’ effects of malnutrition on (Vincent), his disfiguring facial injuries that remained unhealed for months and his physical inability to perform such a small and everyday task as removing a jacket. The jury could reasonably conclude that Stacy was subjectively aware of the fact that her neglect of (Vincent) endangered his health and his life, and their verdict should be affirmed,” McLean writes.
On March 5, the Indiana Court of Appeals issued an opinion and agreed with the state.
“Based on the foregoing, we conclude that the State proved beyond a reasonable doubt that Stacy knowingly neglected (Vincent)?by failing to procure him medical treatment, and that failure resulted in seriously bodily injury to (Vincent),” the opinion stated. “Finding sufficient evidence of Stacy’s knowing conduct and her infliction of serious bodily injury, we will not disturb the jury’s verdict.
Stacy is incarcerated at the Rockville Correctional Facility with a projected release date of Aug. 4, 2032.
