The parents of an 11-year-old girl who died of complications from untreated diabetes last month have both been charged with second-degree reckless homicide, according to Marathon County District Attorney Jill Falstad.
...In a statement released at a 1 p.m. news conference, Falstad said the parents' actions meet the standard of the charges.
"Second-degree reckless homicide has two elements," Falstad said. "The first element is that the defendant caused the death of another. The second element is that the defendant caused the death by criminally reckless conduct.
"In this case, that conduct was the failure to seek medical intervention. The failure to seek medical intervention created unreasonable and substantial risk of death or great bodily harm to Kara and the Neumanns were aware of the risk."
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I'll start with the bottom line: Eleven-year-old Madeline Kara Neumann did not have to die. She would not have died if she had received proper medical care.
Kara's parents are responsible for her death.
I'm sure that they are grieving the loss of their beloved daughter and my heart goes out to them, but they need to be held accountable for what they DIDN'T do.
From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:
Children don't often die like this in the United States.
But on Sunday in the Town of Weston, near Wausau, 11-year-old Madeline Kara Neumann died of diabetic ketoacidosis, a treatable though serious condition of type 1 diabetes in which acid builds up in the blood.
Neumann's parents said they didn't know she had diabetes. They didn't take her to a doctor. They prayed for healing.
The common course of medical treatment for the disease involves injections of insulin and intravenous fluids, said Omar Ali, assistant professor of pediatric endocrinology at the Medical College of Wisconsin in Wauwatosa.
"A fatal outcome would be unusual these days in the United States," Ali said.
The death of the girl has shocked the community and raised profound moral and legal questions over when medicine should trump faith, especially when the life of a child is at stake.
There is no indication authorities knew of the girl's dire medical condition before her death. Local police are investigating the case and have said they could forward their results to the Marathon County district attorney's office. The Marathon County Department of Social Services has also launched an investigation.
Authorities said Wednesday that the Neumanns' three other children - ages 13, 14 and 17 - were being interviewed by Social Services and law enforcement and were being checked by a physician.
"The reaction is sadness, and I think a little bit (of) amazement," said Dean Zuleger, administrator for the Village of Weston. "I haven't seen a lot of what I would see to be knee-jerk judgment. There is a general sense of grief and sadness. Because I know the family a bit there is a great deal of concern for their well-being."
Zuleger said the girl's parents, Dale and Leilani Neumann, are well-known in the community. They moved there from California two years ago and run a popular coffee shop.
...[Everest Metro Police Chief Dan] Vergin said the death of the girl brings up difficult issues.
"At what point do religious beliefs take over for medical help? And the flip of the coin is at what point are the parents responsible for the health and welfare of their children," he said. "These people truly believed their prayer and faith would heal their daughter. They have no question about that."
Police and courts have grappled with such issues for decades.
Norman Fost, professor of bioethics and pediatrics at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health in Madison, said the First Amendment to the Constitution gives citizens the right to practice religion.
"A Jehovah's Witness can refuse life-saving blood transfusion based on their religious belief," he said. "They're protected. But they can't refuse it for their child . . . the First Amendment extends to their own behavior but not their children's."
Under Wisconsin statutes, parents can't be accused of abuse or neglect if the sole reason for the injury is that they relied on prayer, Fost said. But Robyn S. Shapiro, an attorney who is professor of bioethics and director of the Bioethics Center at the Medical College of Wisconsin, said abuse or neglect can include "failure to appropriately respond or supply medical care to your kid."
According to the Associated Press:
[Kara] had probably been ill for about a month, suffering symptoms such as nausea, vomiting, excessive thirst, loss of appetite and weakness, the chief said Wednesday, noting that he expects to complete the investigation by Friday and forward the results to the district attorney.
The girl's mother, Leilani Neumann, said the family believes in the Bible and that healing comes from God, but she said they do not belong to an organized religion or faith, are not fanatics and have nothing against doctors.
She insisted her youngest child, a wiry girl known to wear her straight brown hair in a ponytail, was in good health until recently.
"We just noticed a tiredness within the past two weeks," she said Wednesday. "And then just the day before and that day (she died), it suddenly just went to a more serious situation. We stayed fast in prayer then. We believed that she would recover. We saw signs that to us, it looked like she was recovering."
The mother admits that Kara's condition became a "more serious situation."
At that point, the parents should have sought medical care for their daughter.
Read an AP interview with Kara's parents, Dale and Leilani Neumann.
If the family has "nothing against doctors," then why wouldn't they get their little girl to a doctor when the situation became "serious"?
I believe that one should have the right to worship according to the dictates of one's conscience, but there should be limits.
One such limit is when the practice of religious beliefs impacts the LIFE of a child.
I believe that the parents displayed a degree of neglect that is morally wrong.
In my view, it should be criminal.
An 11-year-old child is dependent and in need of protection.
Kara's parents failed to provide adequate care for her.
The moment the parents noticed that the situation had become "serious," it wasn't time for them to stop praying.
It was time to intensify their prayers, and get their Kara to a doctor.
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Audio of 911 calls
WAUSAU, Wis. (AP) -- The frantic 911 call to the Marathon County Sheriff's Department from the home of an 11-year-old Weston girl who died from untreated diabetes was made by friends of the girl's parents, authorities said Thursday.
The callers hadn't previously been identified.
Randall and Althea Wormgoor each spoke to a dispatcher as chaos and cries could be heard in the background at Dale and Leilani Neumann's home in rural Weston on Sunday afternoon, said Capt. Scott Sleeter of the Everest Metro Police Department in Weston.
Madeline Neumann died Sunday from an undiagnosed but treatable form of diabetes as her parents prayed for her to get better. Her mother, Leilani Neumann, said she never expected her daughter, whom she called Kara, to die.
The family believes in the Bible, which says healing comes from God, Leilani Neumann said.
The sheriff's department released tape recordings Thursday of two calls related to the girl's medical condition.
One was from an aunt in California on the department's non-emergency line, Lt. Jason Plaza said. She reported the girl was in a coma and needed medical help because the family "believes in faith instead of doctors."
The four-minute 911 call from the Neumann's friends came in at 2:38 p.m. Sunday, after police and an ambulance had been dispatched to the home, police said.
In the 911 call, Randall Wormgoor told the dispatcher that the "girl is not breathing" before he handed the phone to Althea Wormgoor, who got details from the dispatcher about performing CPR.
The 911 call from the Neumann residence is heart-wrenching-- the panic and fear and chaos.
It's so sad that they finally did choose to seek help, too late.
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