Warning: Graphic content, readers’ discretion advised. This article contains a recollection of crime and can be triggering to some readers discretion advised.

last january  what  was left of her her rotting  100 lb  body was found embedded-embedded , melted  into a couch in her parents lousiana home .

what 36 year old lacey fletcher went through is nothing short of a nighthmare. lacey  never stood a chanche at a normal life not becausebecause of her  condition  

but because of her evil parents.

sheila and clay fletcher didn’t raise a child they  kept a prisoner and mocked her for needing  love and attention.

 lets explore all the details behind her terrible life and death

this story take us to the small town of slaughter , louisiana.

but despite its terrible name, this  1,000 -people town is a peaceful as can be.

these are the streets lacey fletcher grew up on.

this is the house she grew up in with her parents,sheila and clay.

they were  very well -respected people in their community.and many people lokked up to them .

clay  was a member of the Baton Rouge civil war round table.and  the planning and zoning commitee for the town. 

his wife sheila was a town alderman and assistant to the city prosecutor.

they went to chuch every weekend and were kind  to all who knew them.

on  january 3, 2022

at around 2 am sheila phoned  emergency services, her 36 year old  daughter had stopped breathing she didn’t give them a lot of  details,it almost as if she blamed her daughter for passing away.

but when  the paramedics arrived at lacey’s home, they discovered a scene  that would scar them for life.

immediately, they phoned law enforcement, new stations,and the town’s coroner , dr Ewell Bickham.

 dr bickham would later say  ” i opened the door walked into the house,there was a stench an odor, feeces , fecal matter , urin , you couldn’t hold your breath .

but that’s just  to put it lightly.

dr bickham had been a coroner for three decades, nedless to say ,he’d seen his fair share of disturbing sights and smelled a lot of uncanny things.

everyone  who set foot in  that house on january 3rd was marked for life.

Lacey hadn´t just stopped breathing that day. she had stopped living , in the way that we all know, many ears ago.

when the paramedics found her , she was practically fused with the living room couch. 

her skin had melted into the couch long before  she had passedaway 

dr bickham concluded that the only way this could have happened is if she hadn’t moved from the couch for  around 12 years.

the  autopsy report said lacey’s cause of death was” acute medical neglect” dating back to at least 2010 .

The couch was filled with wast, lacey’s skinfrom her waist down  was red. lacey had been sleeping in a make shift toilet for over a decade.

the rest of the autopsy details aere too gruesome to mention here.

Just to summarize,while their daughter was melting into a toilet couch in the center of their home

jolly old sheila and clay went to chuch, praised god  ,and acted heroes to their community 

Needless to say ,they were arrested and charged with unaliving their daughter 

but  it would be a long ,hard investigation that would reveal  even more sinister details about this family.

 lacey was diagnosed with  severe asperger’s syndrome as a child.but that did not impact her socal life that much in her first years.

she went to public school and her peers knew  her  as vocal and outgoing

she was on the voileyball team ans she was perfectly  able to work in  any sort of team or group of people .

people remembered  lacey as kind ,and quite ,but vocal when it came to sharing opinions  she was also quick tohelp anyone hwo seemed in need of a helping hand.

but when shew  was around 14 ,her parents pulled her out of school and began homeschooling her .reportedly ,her autistic behaviours had worsened .

as a teenager ,lacey spoke less and interracted less with the people around her .

her neighbors saq her walk  around the hous but  she wasn’tnecessarily friendly or outgoing anymore.

one neighbor said :she became different.she just  didn’t see things the way  a lot of other  kids did.

” i last saw her around 15 years ago like my dad, i wouldn’t say i was a particular friend, she’d hang out with my younger brother sometimes,but she was definitely different from other  kids her age .she was smart,smart as hell but i guess  the best way to  put it  is that she  wasn’t as mature as us”

well” mature”is perhaps not the best word here, sperger’syndrome ,a form of autism spectrum disorder , is a developmental disorder

young people with asperger´s syndrome have  a difficult time relating to  others socially and their behavior and thinking patterns can be ridig and repetitive.

in other words ,asperger´s can impact your social life.

so you might not seem as emotionally mature as others your age.

she still liked children’s things, not teenage things, when she was 17 or 18 , she was more into disney movies and country music.

she did invite friends over to watch  disney movies despite being more withdrawn.

this is what the neighbor remember from 15 years before.

creepily , people around slaughter started seeing lacey less and less ,until  they didn’t see her at all .

being of adult age, they assumed she might have left town and moved on with her life.

no one knew she was fusing into her couch just a few feet away from their own homes.

here’s where the situation gets a little murky

there are two conflicting reports about  lacey’s twenties.

one: report says that lacey had begun suffering  from locked- In syndrom .this is a very rare condition where the patient is completely mentally cognitant,yet unable to move parts of their  body.

According to this report ,lace became locked into a position with her legs crossed on the couch.

however , according to  another report , dr bickham denied lacey having this syndrome.

of course ,ther first report was to help her parent’s case .if only by a little bit. 

if she was stuck ina cross legged position, that might explain why she didn’t move from the  couch.

however, it wouldn’t explain why her family didn’t take her to a doctor, and why they left her to rot on the sofa.

january 2,2022

 on monday  , janyary 3, 2022 , wehen they called  911,sheila andclay had just returned from a weekend trip

lacey was left by herself in that house ,unable to get water and food for herself for three days.

another neighbor of the family said about that day : there  was one  neighbor here, we don´t knwo who it  was. hwo had supposedly seen lacey on the couch like that  and told the parents they had to call the police 

were it not fot that neighbor, would lacey’s parents have just buried their daughter in their backyard?

lacey’s case made headlines in louisiana,

then  the U.S…

then the rest of the world.

 lacey weighed just 96 pounds when she was  taken from her home. the autopsy reoprt  confirmed chronic malnutrition , acute starvation , immobility , acute  ulcer formation osteomyelitis, otherwise knopwn as bone infection ,and finally  , sepsis.

this  hadn’t been the first time her parents left her unable to fend for herself while they went vacaying for the  weekend.

 she had been in a state  of near  starvation for years, amd that was just one of the unspeakable horrors  she lived through for decades .

when sheila and clay were arrested , they didn’t show an ounce of remorse.

 sheila even claimed that  she cleaned her daughter’s sores. exept  lacey was covered in waste,it was found in her ears and mouth , too. -she died of sepsis.

shockingly ,they were  released on 300, 000  dollar bonds within 36 hours 

May 2, 2022

sheila andclay stood trial  for taking their daughter’s life, photos  were shown to the jury , both from the crime scenen and from the coroner’s office.

the jury  gasped , sighed ,and cried.these photos were never released to the public.

by the end of  the trial, the jury  concluded sheila and clay were guilty of second  degree murder  even though their initial charge was manslaughter.

their lawyer is still working to have their charges reduced to manslaughter ,after they posted bail, he said :they dont  want  to relive the pain of losing a child  through the media . they have been through a lot of heartaches over the years , anyone who has lost a child knows what it’s like.

Lacey Fletcher pictured next to the couch where she died, via WBRZ screenshot

apart from complaining about  cleaning her daughter’s sores, lacey’s parents also claimed their daughter was  of sound to make her own  decisions according  to them , lacey’s choice to  never leave the couch.

how can you possibly accuse your child of rotting on a sofa?

again , they had 12 years  to phone a doctor or seek help for her worsening condition

 also , no person in their right mind would live with that sight or smell.

apparently  ,lacey  had been going tothe toilet for so long in that spot ,tht even the floorboards under the sofa had begun to decompose and rot , too. 

and yet, the fletcher lived there  like it was nothing ,they just thought this is what they had to do ,as  their daughter refused to move.

 This horrific case has one last shocking twist.

sheila and clay fletcher’s  charges were dropped after the judge discovered prosecutors had mistakenly used defective language for charges of cruelty against  infirm people.

it’s crazy that these people  aren’t already in prison 

and that it takes  so much work to put them behind bars.

 in the summer of 2023, a year and a half  since poor lacey was found , her evil parents were still walking free.

people ar just outraged by  this,is there a chance that if this mother and father of  lacey fletcher are reindicted ,could there  be a lesser charge or will it still be murder?

 the DA is trying to press on and go after these two people on the murder charge because of what  had happened to lacey.

Its a million dollar question to think of what had happened to sheila and clay to be so far removed from humanity.

to think it’s normal to live in that  smell , next to your rotting daughter, and feel no remorse as you let her starve and go on vacation….

 at the  end of june 2023, the couple was  re- arrested and charged once more with second-degree murder 

the district attorney sam  D’Aquilla  said:” will ensure there is justice for lacey and the public knows that Cargivers will be  charged for neglecting or abusing a person in their care.”

they were realeased on bond . if convicted , they face life in prison

as of october 2023, sheila and  clay are yet to receive their sentences

update:
⦁ “The District Attorney seeks to convict the Fletchers of second-degree murder by improperly amending the indictment so the State can attempt to convict by a lesser burden,” the defense attorney wrote.
A court agreed.
⦁ The couple were released on a $300,000 bond each and pleaded not guilty in July 2022. They were due to stand trial later this month, June 2023, but instead, District Judge Kathryn Jones dropped the charges following a hearing on May 30. Judge Jones reportedly cited a technicality in the wording of the indictment.