#326: Woman Melted Into The Couch For 12 Years - Tragic Case of Lacey Fletcher

26:28And at around 10 p.m. when Sheila fell asleep for the night, Lacey was still alive. When she woke up the next morning, Lacey was dead. That's what Sheila Fletcher said. But Sheila Fletcher is a liar. In my personal humble opinion. Sheila stated January 2nd, 2022, Lacey ate half a sandwich and a bag of Cheetos. This is not what would be found in Lacey's stomach during the autopsy. All they could find in her stomach was sofa foam and feces. No sandwich, no Cheetos. And if Lacey had been sitting there on that couch for 12 years, that means this hell would have begun around 2010. And she would have almost certainly been in pain since day one.

27:08They said that she's been sitting there for 12 years? They said that it's been years. They didn't give an exact estimate, but the coroner said about 12 years. Wow. Now, skin exposure to urine and feces is painful and can start stinging within hours. It happens more frequently with infants. It's actually called a diaper rash and it can get very serious if not even kill infants. And it's not even done purposely most of the times that babies have diaper rashes. It's not abuse. It's typically just because they're very sensitive. Now, the main symptoms are red rashes on the buttocks. If left unaddressed for too long, it can quickly escalate into a full body fever, full body chills, and a full body rash.

27:49Urine and feces contain ammonia. Now, ammonia is very corrosive. If your skin is in contact with ammonia for long periods of time, it can cause irritation and even burns. That could have happened within the first few hours of the first day that Lacey had soiled herself on that couch. Now, if a diaper rash is left untreated, the skin starts to swell. It can transform into these rashes that have these white bumps all over that ooze clear fluid. And then the skin starts to peel, causing these open sores. It's very painful. And if there's still urine or feces that's there to make contact with those open sores, you're at a dangerous risk of infections.

28:29Yeast infections might be one. Yeast dermatitis could be another thing. Those are dark red areas of the skin, usually filled with these raised yellow fluid filled pustules. This is likely all happening near the private regions because she was found sitting cross-legged. So she's genuinely sitting in a pile of her urine and feces, which makes everything much more sensitive and painful because these are your private parts. Side note, if Lacey still had her menstrual cycle at the beginning of all of this, she may not have due to malnutrition or other reasons, But if she did, that means there would have also been blood rotting into the sofa.

29:07And blood attracts flies. Flies would have been attracted to Lacey and her wounds that were all primarily, again, in her down regions. Also, infections for the private regions are incredibly painful. And that is just the beginning. This is still when everything is treatable fairly easily. Painful, but not like life-threatening, typically. Even without urine and feces, the high risk of painful infections, just sitting or laying in one place is horrendous for the body. Bedsores. Have you heard of bedsores? They're going to be one of the first things to show up. Bedsores occur when there is continuous pressure on parts of the body, usually by sitting or laying in a single position for an extended period of time.

29:48So you're cutting off blood supply to that specific area, which causes the surrounding tissue to start dying. Within two hours, the tissue starts dying. Humans are very sensitive. because that tissue is not getting enough oxygen because blood has oxygen in it and you're not getting blood flowing there and it can happen in two to three hours. So you're like, okay, well, why don't I get bed sores when I'm falling asleep? We're constantly moving. Even shuffling like this is moving. So if you're sitting on a chair for eight hours studying, if you're moving a little bit, it's hard to get bed sores.

30:19This stops it from developing. But if you're unable to move around, a bed sore is going to happen because there's a lack of oxygen. Like it's not preventable. The skin will die and the bedsore will just look like a red blotch on the skin. So it starts looking like a sunburn and it feels a little hot to the touch, kind of like a sunburn, warm. It might even be a little itchy, very similar to a sunburn, but eventually it turns purple. And by that point, if left untreated, the skin will break open and you're just going to have this painful wound that becomes easily infected and then it collapses on itself.

30:54It's like a crater-sized blister. some bed sores, I saw pictures on Reddit. I honestly don't know. I should not have gone down that route. There's like dinner plate sized bed sores and you can see all the way to the bone and it's not just skin deep. That's the problem. These bed sores collapse and they go deeper and deeper until you literally have Swiss cheese like holes on your body. They reach into the muscle all the way to the bone. If you see a really bad picture of a bed sore, you can see muscle, tendons, bones, joints, just in a hole in someone's body. It's like an exposed tunnel for people to see inside of you.

31:33Once a bed sore develops, you have to treat it and dress it every single day, multiple times a day. It is absolutely horrendous for the patient and the caretaker. And bed sores are very, very, very slow to heal. With bed sores, genuinely prevention is the only key. All you can do is move around. So that's why when you have bed bound patients, one of the first things that caretakers or nurses learn is you have to flip the patient every two hours. There's no question about it. And that's why when you go to nursing homes and maybe your grandparents have a bed sore, it's taken so seriously because when you hear the word bed sore, you're like, okay, it's not that big of a deal, but it's a very clear indicator that there could be abuse happening.

32:11Some really bad bed sores take days, months, even years to heal. Some may never heal. They may need surgery. and when it's super serious, bed sores can lead to death. Once they get infected, it leads to sepsis and death. Bed sores cause the death of more than 24 ,000 people each year and again, the saddest part is most of the time, bed sores are completely preventable. I feel like it's very safe to assume that Lacey went through all of that and more. By the time that her body was found, the flesh on Lacey's bottom had been worn away and eaten. It was gone. Like she had no thighs, no butt. Her back and butt area, it was impossible to tell what part was a human being.

32:54Her skin and flesh were so rotten and half eaten by maggots. There were other areas that maybe looked a little bit more like human skin, but it was completely yellow, which is typically a sign of infected skin. Lacey had bed sores that went all the way down to her bones. Her skin was rotting away from constantly sitting in a mess of feces and acidic urine. she had a severe case of gangrene which is when your flesh is dead so the tissue changes from red to black and then you're left with dead tissue which is very dangerous because again you're at risk of infection which can kill you the only tiny bit of relief in all of this is hopefully with her injuries being that deep into her skin hopefully it destroyed her nerve endings there's a chance that it might not have but there is a chance that it did so maybe she had lost feeling in some of these parts of her body around the injury sites.

33:45We don't know for sure, but we can only hope that she didn't feel what was slowly happening to her body for 12 long, agonizing, painful years. And it wasn't just the lower part of her body. Her entire backside was a mess of raw, rotten flesh. She was completely covered in raw red blotches and Lacey's wounds were being cleaned. Not by her parents, but by maggots. Maggots were crawling in and out of her, consuming her dead flesh. And for this case, the maggots did more to help Lacey than her own parents. Like I know usually we talk about maggots and it's not in a positive light, but maggots have a very important role in this world.

34:25So they eat dead flesh. In medical history, and sometimes even today, maggots have been used as a way of helping clean wounds. So maggots, they leave, usually they leave healthy flesh alone and just feed off of dead flesh, which needs to be cut away anyway because you're at risk of infection. And in Lacey's case, it seems to have worked to the point that she did not die of sepsis and infection for the first 12 years. The maggots kept her alive by eating the dead flesh on her wounds. While her parents did nothing for her, in my opinion. We know that Lacey was left with no real food or water in reach, and Lacey, on some level, was aware enough to know that she needed to eat.

35:04Her body seems to have grasped for anything that she could get, and the sofa foam was the only thing in reach. That and feces. Because that was what was found in her stomach. Not half of a sandwich or Cheetos. That's just the physical trauma of her body. We don't know to what extent and how bad the emotional and mental trauma was for 12 years. We don't know if this is even the full extent of her physical trauma. Technically, there could have been things that happened to her years ago that wouldn't be present during the autopsy now. Dr. Bickham's official report stated Lacey died of sepsis. As a result of severe medical neglect, which led to chronic malnutrition, acute starvation, Lacey only weighed 96 pounds at 36 years old, immobility, acute ulcer formation, bone infection, which ultimately led to sepsis and death.

35:56And one last thing about Lacey's autopsy. Sheila Fletcher stated she never took Lacey to the doctor because Lacey had never been sick. Which like, let's not even unpack how ridiculous that statement is. Like, we don't even need to go there. But that alone seems to be another lie, or at least a very misguided statement. Because Lacey had COVID when she died. Most of Clay and Sheila Fletcher's friends did not even know that they had a daughter. But there were people that remembered Lacey. The ones who went to school with her in Slaughter, Louisiana, or the ones that saw her running around the neighborhood when she was younger, they all just assumed that she had grown up, moved out of Slaughter, maybe settled down nearby in Baton Rouge, got married.

36:37The ones that knew that the Fletchers had a daughter, they remembered Lacey as being a very friendly kid. She was fun to be around. She had a lot of different interests. She was, you know, like a lot of people, obsessed with Disney. She loved anything Disney World, Disneyland, Disney movies, characters. That's her happy place. She would send friends links to videos of Disney. Also, Mariah Carey and country music. Very interesting mix. But she was someone that just had a very wide range of interests. She's very active. She loved bowling, volleyball. Those were her favorite activities. And everybody's favorite word to describe Lacey was just sweet.

37:11Like as sweet as can be. She never acted out. She didn't seem like she was creating trouble or... You know, when you have younger kids, there can be certain things that they do or say, or maybe they're acting out that might indicate that something darker is happening within. Maybe it's happening at the house. There's just these little indications, right? Lacey didn't have any of that. She was a happy-go-lucky kid that liked to have fun. Now, side note, Lacey was diagnosed as autistic when she was younger. And just to give you a bit of context, autism is a neurological condition. It is not an illness, and it's a lot more common than people think.

37:48Around 1 in 36 children were diagnosed as autistic in 2023, and it generally affects the way that people communicate for a few reasons. And I'm not saying it's good or bad. It's just a different way of communicating. Many autistic people report feeling their senses a bit more. So what seems like a quiet room for some people can actually be sensory overload for an autistic person. Some autistic people report having excellent memory for facts and very strong problem-solving logical minds. but they might struggle with social cues or small talk. Or some autistic people have reported finding it difficult to read facial expressions and eye contact.

38:25There has been a lot of stigma and prejudice attached to autism for a very long time, and I think there still is today. But I think being able to see the world in slightly different ways is a great thing. Different world perception is not necessarily better or worse, it's just different, and I think we need different perceptions. There's a common saying in the autistic community, if you've met one autistic person then you've met one autistic person because it's not really something where you can generalize and say oh if you have autism then you feel a b c and d it's such a wide spectrum that people can be very different from one another with very different needs and different ways of communicating so keep that in mind because lacy's parents would often tell people yeah lacy's just super quiet and withdrawn and she doesn't like socializing but her friends at school were so confused they're like are we talking about the same girl right now are we talking about the same lacy i mean sure i guess she's kind of quiet compared to like the class clown but she would go out of her way to welcome people and try to build connections i mean she's very opinionated and very passionate about a lot of things she loved new experiences and she loved a change in her routine so i i don't know what the parents are saying to a lot of Lacey's childhood friends it felt like her parents didn't even know who she was and side note her parents were allegedly wishy-washy with her diagnosis sometimes they would state that Lacey had Asperger syndrome which is no longer used as a diagnosis anymore by the way sometimes they would describe her autism as quote mild other times they would describe it as quote severe which side note from what I've been told the better verbiage to describe autism is higher low support needs.

40:05But these are allegedly the verbiage that Lacey's parents used. So this is not me describing Lacey. Lacey's doctor, Dr. Bickham. Dr. Bickham, the one that went to Lacey Fletcher's home to find her, was her primary care physician when she was younger. Wow. He was friendly with the Fletchers. Like he knew the Fletchers. He was their doctor. He's also the town coroner. Small town. Yeah. Dr. Bickham would even describe her diagnosis as, quote, severe autism and social anxiety. But again, this just doesn't really match the way that Lacey's friends describe her. So it's confusing. And just to clarify, Lacey did have unique interests, but it doesn't seem to have anything to do with autism, like just flat out.

40:50So one of Lacey's old classmates would say, yeah, I saw her around 15 years ago and she was definitely different from other kids her age. I mean, I knew that she wasn't your typical teenager. This is all a direct quote. She was smart. She was smart as hell. But I guess the best way to describe her was she wasn't as mature as us. She still liked childish things, like not teenage things. When she was 17 or 18, she was more into Disney movies and country music. Which again, I don't know how that's very different. She would invite us over to watch Disney movies despite being more withdrawn. But it's just not my forte.

41:23I used to ride motorcycles. Again, she just had her own interests. I would hardly call that strange or a reflection of her diagnosis. So a lot of Lacey's friends, they're shocked when at 16 years old, Lacey gets pulled out of public school at the end of ninth grade and she started to get homeschooled. Her parents stated that she had to be pulled out of school immediately, but it's so unclear. Like why? Side note, back then homeschooling was not very common and the Fletchers, they never gave examples of why, at least not yet of what made them think, you know, this is it. We need to pull her out of school for her own good.

41:56We need to make sure that her sports, her friends, her socialization, we need to cut it off. All they said was that Lacey's autism got worse, which is strange because autistic people can struggle in a rigid school environment and they may need to be homeschooled either permanently or for a short period of time. But usually it's very important that there's a support network in place because literally every human on this earth needs a support group to help manage stress and keep up with interpersonal relationships so that they don't get isolated. But they just cut off all of Lacey's friends. Even if a kid is homeschooled, it is in the parents' best interest to let them keep their already established friendships.

42:32But allegedly, none of that happened. Allegedly, once Lacey started getting homeschooled, she was seen outside less and less. In fact, it just seemed like the couple stopped bringing Lacey up in conversations even. The last time someone distinctly or at least reports remembering Lacey being brought up in conversations was in 2010. Lacey would have been 23 at the time. The Fletchers walked into Dr. Bickham's office without Lacey and stated, our daughter Lacey is becoming reclusive. She never wants to leave the house or the couch. Interestingly, the Fletchers could have easily taken photos or videos to show Dr.

43:11Bickham what's going on. I mean, that seems like the very logical, common sense thing to do, but they brought along no footage. Just told him, we don't know what's going on. Based on the Fletcher's description, it sounded like Lacey was dealing with extreme and sudden agoraphobia, which is a disorder when people are afraid of open spaces like public areas. On the milder side, it can be someone that has very extreme social anxiety, does not want to be in places that they're not comfortable with or cannot deem as a safe space, which public spaces, you know, they tend to be a bit more unpredictable.

43:42But on the more extreme end, you have people who never leave the house. they deem the home or even a certain room of the home to be the only safe space in the entire world for them. And even stepping outside of that safe space could result in a panic attack. So this is very serious. Now, typically agoraphobia is more likely in people that already struggle with anxiety and it can get worse over time if it's not helped or treated. Someone's safe space can actually get smaller and smaller. So when it used to be the whole house, someone with agoraphobia can be like, actually, now it's only the back of the house.

44:16Actually, now it's only the living room, which we have no idea if this is even what's happening to Lacey. All we have are her parents at her doctor's office saying she doesn't want to get off the couch and she's being antisocial. For all we know, she could have been tied to the couch. Side note, that is a theory later that comes up. And another side note, some people have just put the autism as a blanket statement over anything going on with Lacey at the time and why she was pulled out of school. And again, sure, maybe, maybe something was going on with Lacey, but we don't have proof. And autism doesn't suddenly change a person drastically.

44:50An autistic person who can speak, make friends, have hobbies, go to school, use the restroom by themselves, they don't just suddenly wake up one day and don't do those things. But a lot of people are like, oh, autism. Like, that's not how it works. We have no idea why Lacey was pulled out of school. We have no idea what caused her parents to pull her out of school. So just to recap, Lacey is pulled out of school at 16. She was last seen by Robert Blades Sr. exercising outside when she was 21. The Fletchers tell Dr. Bickham that she stopped wanting to leave the house at age 23. Lacey was emailing a friend of hers at 27 and Robert Blades Sr.

45:27asked Clay about Lacey and he said that she was fine and at home and then changed the subject when Lacey was 30. Six years later, Lacey Fletchers was found dead on the couch at 36 years old. Lacey Fletcher sat down on the couch one day, whether it was against her will or not, will be argued later, but she never got back up. How is that even possible? The first theory that came about online was that Lacey had locked-in syndrome, which we talked about earlier in the episode. Because when this case broke, a rumor started that she had locked-in syndrome, and everyone, including major news outlets, they just ran with it.

46:04They said that she had locked-in syndrome because it just answered all the questions of why and how is an able-bodied woman sitting in her own waist for 12 years until the couch fell apart locked in syndrome was kind of this neat little package that answers every little question and gives people peace but it's not true lacy did not have locked in syndrome she was able at some point to email her friends or at least dictate what she wanted emailed to her friends she was able to feed herself and even swallow the sofa foam and feces. So even if you have locked-in syndrome and someone is force-feeding you something, you cannot swallow.

46:38You have no control over any of your muscles except maybe your eyelids. You are fully locked into your body, which it appears Lacey was not. Side note, Dr. Bickham would later state that he had never heard of locked-in syndrome in his entire career, refuting the idea that Lacey Fletcher had this syndrome. And while she may not have had locked-in syndrome, it is a very real thing that does exist. It's just very rare. But it doesn't seem like Lacey had it. Which leads us to the most confusing question of all of this. Then why didn't she just get up? There are a few theories on why, but the belief is regardless of how it started, her leg muscles probably atrophied to the point where she could no longer be able to get up even if she wanted to.

47:19So she started off able-bodied, but her leg muscles might have been completely dead. Let's say for whatever reason, you are unable to get up from a sitting position, whether that be from inner mental or outside physical force, you cannot get up. Your physical body is going to react to that. Have you ever slept and your leg fell asleep where you've been in one position for so long that your leg goes numb and then when you finally take the pressure off that leg, you feel that tingling pins and needle feeling and it's just uncomfortable. And if we realize it's happening, most of us can do something about it if we're able-bodied.

47:52But if Lacey had been sitting in that same position for long enough, her leg muscles would have atrophied on their own and started wasting away, becoming locked into place, paralyzing her. Over time, the pain and rotting of the flesh in her thighs and buttocks would have further paralyzed her muscles as well. Lacey was found in her legs crossed in a position that most people would actually deem and describe as defensive rather than comfortable. Like how long can you actually sit crisscross applesauce without getting uncomfortable? So let's just say that's how she first sat down on the couch. Again, we can't say for certain if this was or was not against her will because there are online theories about it but let's just say she sat down like that soon within minutes or hours blood would flow more slowly to this area which can lead to what i talked about the the bed sores but it gets worse because this loss of blood is basically a crushing injury not as a description but that's what they call it like as if you're getting crushed it just gets more and more dangerous over time as well The tissue around her legs and butt were dying.

48:52If it gets really severe, surgery or even amputation would be necessary to correct the problem. At a certain point, since Lacey had been sitting for that long, even just getting up could kill her. So it's not like her parents are saying she just didn't want to get up from the couch. She could die by getting up from the couch. Not to overcomplicate it, but if you have a crushing injury like compartment syndrome, When there is high enough pressure on a limb or part of the body that blocks blood flow to that compartment of the body, for example, Lacey's legs and behind area, potassium starts to build up.

49:26And then when you get up or the pressure is suddenly taken off of that area, all that potassium has nowhere to go except straight into your bloodstream. And this rush of massive amounts of potassium causes a heart attack and you can die. Lacey had been on that couch for 12 years. by year one, it would have been shocking if Lacey was even able to use her legs at all. She would have been fully paralyzed. This is likely what could have happened to Lacey's physical body. But again, why? Why did she sit down and never get up? Even if she must have felt extreme discomfort in that position, why didn't she just move or reposition herself or get up entirely?

50:02Okay, fine. Let's say that she didn't want to get up from this couch. This couch is her safe space. There was some sort of mental barrier. Why didn't she change her positions around?

50:22there are two theories that people have considered online either there was a mental or emotional reason Lacey did not get up or she was physically tied down in the beginning until her legs atrophied let's explore the first theory that she chose to be on the couch and just to preface even if it was Lacey's choice, the fact that her parents didn't do anything to help her, that's not okay, in my opinion, if this theory is even true. I think it's still a tragic, horrible case of neglect. Neglect that borders abuse because of how severe it is. But some people theorize that Lacey had developed agoraphobia at 16, and it escalated, developing worse and worse every single year, until it reached a point where Lacey's only safe space was the couch that she was on.

51:04She didn't want to get off the couch. And the theory goes that the Fletcher parents, they don't know how to handle this. They thought Lacey was being this lazy teenager who didn't want to socialize, work, or go to school. And it started off as a stubbornness problem. Well, if you don't want to get off the couch, we're not going to take care of you. But eventually that evolved into the Fletcher parents building resentment and denial towards Lacey and the condition. This is again, a theory. This theory is the kindest towards the Fletcher parents. It's the theory that her parents became so overwhelmed by her quote issues that they just kept ignoring the quote problem for 12 years until Lacey died.

51:41Some people argue that caregiver resentment is very real and that maybe her parents were in denial about how bad it was getting until it was too late. One detail that I guess supports this theory, not really because I have a hard time getting behind this theory, but anyway, a supporting detail, I guess you could argue, is that Lacey was still emailing her friends in 2014 when she was around 27 years old. A few of her old high school friends received emails and they sounded very much like Lacey. They were filled with passion and she was sending them links of videos from Disney. Not of her at Disney, but like of Disney.

52:16There was no hint that she was trapped anywhere or being abused. We have no idea if Lacey was given her phone, had access to her phone to send these emails. We have no idea if she told someone what she wanted to say in the email and someone sent it. We have no idea if someone wrote the email for her. We have no clue. We just know that these emails were sent under her email address and they sounded very much like her. And I guess the people that are in support of this theory, they think if Lacey's parents were actively abusing her or torturing her in some way, would they want her to have her phone to message her friends?

52:52Like what if she told them something? What if she reached out for help? And then a few years before that, Lacey's parents went to Dr. Bickham, remember, to talk about how Lacey was becoming very socially reclusive. Why would they do that? Why wouldn't they just act like she went to the big city, moved on, got married, went to college? Side note, I saw arguments as well that some autistic people struggle to explain when they're in pain and explain exactly how much pain they're in, which has led to serious issues. But I don't know how that applies because that's usually for injuries that can't be seen from the outside, like appendicitis.

53:25I want to include it because it has been mentioned, but I just don't think that autism really has anything to do with this case other than the media reaction of justifying and almost answering Lacey's death by just saying, oh, blanket statement, autism. But other than that, I don't see how the fact that she was autistic applies to the questions that need to be answered. Lacey had sores all over her flesh that was rotting. Maggots were eating away at her, consuming her right in front of her parents. Who cares if she was autistic or not? Like, I don't think anyone needed for her to verbally say, hey, guys, I'm in pain.

53:58And there have been theories of how Lacey went from being a socially active 16 year old girl to not leaving the couch. One of the more popular theories are severe agoraphobia. Some people speculate that Lacey could have also developed schizophrenia with the average age of onset tending to be around 20 to 30 for women. So they're like, what if she was schizophrenic? And perhaps schizophrenia was causing her hallucinations that made her terrified to leave the couch in fear of some sort of perceived danger out there. Or maybe she had some sort of brain injury that caused her to suddenly behaved differently and her parents had no idea how to give her care.

54:32Another supporting theory is that Lacey was kept alive for 12 years. A person can usually only live about a few days without water and a few weeks without food. And although Lacey was severely malnourished, she was getting enough food and fiber to at least defecate, which side note, this is a big part of life. Extreme constipation can actually cause death on its own by blocking the intestines and the colon. So Lacey was getting enough food to defecate and pass urine. She also had all of her front teeth when she died. So someone, whether it was Lacey or her parents, someone was helping her brush her teeth for her.

55:05Could the parents have been in so far in denial that they just didn't understand that Lacey could no longer move and get up on her own or even use the toilet right next to the couch? Maybe they thought even in year 10 that her legs had not atrophied, even though they were completely rotten and eaten by maggots. They just thought that she was being stubborn and a lazy kid. Or they thought that they were being good authoritative parents. They're like, you're stubborn. Well, we're not going to do what you want us to do. After all, some people argue that the parents clearly brought her a toilet to use and put it up right next to the couch, provided her with baby wipes and baby powder for her, as well as an option to have clean clothes that were sitting right next to her and her favorite movies laid out on the side.

55:51Someone's brushing her teeth, which caregivers have stated brushing a patient's teeth is actually a very strenuous, stressful process. Why would they do that unless to a degree they cared about her? That's the theory. I don't believe it. And I'm very reluctant to state when I don't believe a theory strongly. I just don't see this one. It doesn't answer any questions for me. Like never say never. So sure, maybe this is how the Fletcher parents felt personally, but it's still not really acceptable in my opinion. I mean, ignoring someone's depression, maybe I could try to understand it a little more.

56:21Maybe they're locked in their room and they don't talk to you. They don't communicate with you. That's something where I'm more kind of like maybe the parents didn't fully understand it. Or maybe they're very ignorant about these mental illnesses. But when someone has sores down to their bones, like their body is a mixture of holes and black and blue from tissue death. And there are maggots crawling around eating your child, consuming your child's flesh. How can they be in denial? Even in very rare cases, we might sometimes hear, once in a blue moon, stories of people keeping their loved one's deceased bodies.

56:52Like no matter how much decomposition is happening, because these people are in denial of their loved one's death. But that denial typically extends all the way into other aspects of that person's life. They will be in denial about their loved one's death. They will still talk to them. They will still talk about them with other people as if they're still alive. But for the Fletcher parents, they were completely normal when they went outside to socialize. They never spoke about Lacey later on. It's as if she didn't exist. Most of their friends didn't even know that they had a kid. If they were in denial, wouldn't they talk about Lacey as if she's still alive and doing well?

57:25She's just being a lazy kid and not melting into the couch. It's like they're hiding it, in my opinion. You know, people online have stated when parents love their kids and will do anything for them, but their circumstances are just really bad, they don't have the funds to get their child the proper care. The state won't help. There's no other option. They feel lost and heartbroken that they can't do more for their child. That is clearly not the case with the Fletchers. The Fletchers would have enough to pay bail for the both of them. That amounts to$72 ,000 in cash. They could have easily found Lacey a long-term facility to help her because they can't be the ones to help her.

58:01So it's not that they had a lack of funds. Not only that, they live in Slaughter, Louisiana. The community there is incredibly strong. Everyone wants to help their neighbors. and they're popular members of the community. You're telling me that the community wouldn't have rallied together to help Lacey? But the point is, the Fletchers didn't even try. So while denial, I think, is a powerful thing and being a caretaker is a very complex role, I don't believe that the Fletchers could have been in denial for 12 years. Every parent that I personally know, even seeing their child sick with a cold, a flu for a day, it physically and mentally pains them.

58:36But it is a theory, so I have to tell you about it. One of the Fletcher's neighbors even stated, the Fletchers are good people who just made bad decisions. One netizen commented on the case and said, it can be extremely stressful for caregivers. Could Lacey have avoided her tragic end if more support and help were given to the parents who cared for her? Support to the parents? Yeah. They may have been really helpless and did not know what to do. Wow. Yeah, what a, I think it's a pretty horrendous comment to make. Could Lacey have avoided her tragic end? The comment said. Another netizen points out, they didn't even have her in a private room ignoring her.

59:15Like they walked by her every single day and watched what happened. That's disgusting. That's not denial. And another big thing to note, the parents weren't so in over their heads that they didn't have time or energy to be a part of the community. They always showed themselves in a very positive light to their neighbors and colleagues. They were very much active in social life. So they seemed involved in other interpersonal relationships. So they had the energy for that. Yeah, and the fact that it's been so many years it's like every day it's a decision every minute every hour is a decision that they're making and it's only not to save her life and more and more painful for her to be alive in that state too exactly so now we head into the third theory the fletchers were torturing their only daughter lacy this is the theory that most people including law enforcement seem to believe a lot of it has to do with the fact that shula even outright lied to the police stating that Lacey's last meal was the sandwich and the Cheetos.

1:00:09And we know that's not true. And there are two versions of this theory. I would say that law enforcement probably believed the latter theory, but the former theory, I'm going to run through it. The first version is that people believe that something traumatic happened to Lacey and then it spiraled into this. So this is very conspiracy vibes. This is based off of zero evidence, just from what little facts we know about the case. Some netizens have kind of spun together a theory of what they think might've happened. The first theory is that she was somehow injured. She had some sort of brain injury and all she could do was sit there.

1:00:43Or a traumatic event caused something in her brain to shift. Like SA could be an example of a traumatic event. And I know that SA is a wild theory to just throw out there. Some netizens believe this theory a bit more because Clay and Sheila went to see Dr. Bickham in 2010. They stated that Lacey was acting differently. And some people who have been sexually abused will try and make themselves seem repulsive to their attacker. like they refuse to wash. Or they will have kind of a drastic shift in their personality because of the trauma. Which still is very crazy theory just to toss around. But I don't think that anyone is trying to string together heinous things for the sake of it.

1:01:20I think people are genuinely trying to understand how this could happen to someone and how evil someone has to be to just watch it happen. Anyway, the theory continues that after a traumatic event, whether it be SA or some sort of physical injury, Lacey was no longer the same. And maybe the theory is her parents caused that shift in some way, shape or form. And they can't get her help because she might tell someone. They can't get her admitted because she might tell someone. So they just sit her down on the couch. And from there, her legs start atrophying and it escalates into this situation where they still do not want to get her help.

1:01:58There's also a theory that she was tied to the couch in that position until her legs naturally atrophied. And that is, again, purely a theory. There is zero evidence that she was tied to the couch on or before the day she died. But she was on the couch for the past 12 years. And like we said, within the first year, her legs were probably paralyzed and stuck in that position. So we don't know if maybe the first year she was on that couch, she could have been tied up. Who's to say? So the conspiracy is something bad happened. Parents don't want it to get out. Lacey is forced onto couch till her legs atrophy.

1:02:29Parents kept Lacey alive to torture her. Again, this is purely based on theory and not fact. Now, one aspect that people cannot get over is the fact that Lacey was found nude, except the shirt pulled over her chest. The nude part, maybe the parents stopped dressing her because they knew that she would just soil herself again, but why not let her have her top on? Why was it pulled up above her chest? Did it hurt the wounds on her back? Because then they said that she wasn't in pain and she never said that she was in pain. So why would it be pulled up? It just feels extra degrading. Like either take it all the way off or pull it down.

1:03:05I guess a lot of people have been reading into it. It feels very humiliating. The other theory is something was going on with Lacey where she was terrified to leave the couch, but the parents believed that she was just being a difficult teenager. So they stubbornly told her, fine, sit on the couch then. And they started torturing her basically out of spite. Even before Lacey passed with just sofa foam and feces in her stomach, she was malnourished. It was chronic. So that means over time, Lacey was not getting enough nutrients or food. So the parents, they're going out to eat. They're going on trips.

1:03:34They're going away for the weekends, hanging out with friends. Lacey was alone starving. That sounds like torture. Some people think that even the toilet seat and the cleaning supplies being so close to the couch was a form of psychological torture. Like, look at everything you could use if you just get up, but you can't. Because why was it there? I mean, it's really clear. Like half of her body has disintegrated and melted. What do you mean get up to use the restroom? I think anyone with a brain, in my opinion, would know that she cannot get up to use that toilet, even if it's pulled up right next to the couch.

1:04:09She can't even move her position. And a lot of people argue the tea thing. That's not the parents being in denial. That feels like torture. That feels like you're keeping her alive to prolong some sort of torture. Like this is no way for a parent to see their child live. But if that's the case, why would Sheila call 911 when Lacey died? Most people didn't even know the Fletchers had a daughter. And the ones who did, they thought that she moved away and started her own life. Nobody was suspicious of the Fletchers in any way. Why wouldn't they just dispose of her body, even bury her in the backyard?

1:04:41Who would know? One neighbor reported that someone might have forced Sheila to call the police. And just to preface, there is no proof about what I'm about to say. But there's a running theory based off of an allegation given by a third party that is not involved. So take it with a bottle of salt. Allegedly, Sheila didn't call 911 because Lacey's heart stopped and she wanted her to be saved or wanted the authorities to know that her daughter was dead. Allegedly, there was a neighbor who peeked through their window that last day on January 3rd, saw Lacey on the couch and told the Fletchers, what the hell is going on inside your house?

1:05:11Like maybe they had come over to knock on the door and they didn't answer or something or they had looked through the window when the Fletchers had gone away for New Year's. We don't know. But they threatened the Fletchers, if you don't call the cops, I'm going to call the cops. So Sheila was forced to call 911 and report Lacey being dead. The timing of that, though. Yeah, that's what one of the neighbors had stated that they were told. We have no idea if this is true. Either way, one netizen commented on this case and said, I think her parents are liars. And considering the lotions and other toiletries that were reportedly found near the sofa with clean clothes, I believe some sort of psychological torture was happening in conjunction with the prolonged starvation.

1:05:50And there's something else that bothers me. If the media is correct about Lacey and she was found almost completely nude, her top pulled up above her chest, why? Was this an attempt to further humiliate her? And as unlikely as it may sound given the circumstances, was she essayed? This is all speculation, of course. We will have to wait for the trial for the truth to come out. That is what a comment says. Now, other commentators say, I believe one Fletcher will turn on the other in hopes of not dying in prison. But I guess none of the theories really answer every question neatly. And again, they're just theories, just lingering questions.

1:06:23And another one is, how did the parents live with the smell? How did nobody smell it on them? So to try and answer that question, maybe the parents developed olfactory fatigue, nose blindness. It's when your nose gets so used to a certain smell that you can no longer smell it. Actually, we do this all the time. So it's like how your eyes can technically see your nose 24-7, but our brains block it out. Our nose can smell our own house scent, but our nose blocks it out so that if there's any other foreign scent, like a dangerous, oh, the toast is burning, we can smell it better instead of becoming overstimulated.

1:06:59So maybe that can explain why the Fletchers were able to live with that smell. But what about the other people? How could they not smell it on them? Oddly, no one ever reported a smell coming from the Fletchers or the house. the Fletchers were finally arrested and Dr. Bickham the coroner had fought to get a team of medics on standby outside the courtroom while pictures of Lacey were being viewed by the jury just in case he said the jurors are storekeepers farmers many of them have never been exposed to this kind of stuff so I need a medical team to be outside the courtroom the DA stated that the photos left the courtroom speechless he said when I was presenting the case and showed the pictures and gave the timeline, the expressions of the grand jury was utter shock.

1:07:44Like the clock on the wall never moved again. There was just complete silence. Some jurors were gasping in horror. Some were just staring out in disbelief. So this was not the actual trial. The jury were there to decide whether or not the parents would be charged with manslaughter, negligent homicide, or second-degree murder. Negligent homicide is when someone's criminally negligent behavior causes another person's death. But the requirement, I guess you could say, is that that person responsible failed to realize that their behavior was so dangerous that it could kill someone. Like the intent was not to kill.

1:08:15One of the most notable cases would be an Air Peru flight that crashed and killed 70 passengers and crew. To oversimplify it, pilots and crew realized that something was wrong while they were flying. They were way too low in altitude, but they didn't know that. So their reading instruments were off. And it's because a maintenance staff of this flight team had put adhesive tape on static ports of some of the instruments while they were cleaning and forgot to take it off. And these static ports are so important on telling the pilot how high up they were. So when they tried to do an emergency landing, they fell into the Pacific Ocean and they all passed.

1:08:52He was charged with negligent homicide. So it is ingrained in flight staff. make sure nothing is covering the static ports. But because of his negligent behavior, people died. But he never had the intent. Like he didn't have a manifesto in his house of like, I'm going to kill people. This is the lightest of the three charges that were on the table for Lacey Fletcher's case. The sentencing for negligent homicide is typically zero to five years. Manslaughter is very similar to negligent homicide in the sense that someone's behavior caused another person's death, but it is also done so without premeditation or intent.

1:09:25meaning nobody sat there thinking if I do action A, I'm going to kill person B. So I need to do action A because my goal is to kill person B. The idea is more, oops, I did action A for whatever reason and it ended up killing person B. So for example, voluntary manslaughter, a good example would be if you come home and you see your wife in bed with another man, you grab a lamp and in your fit of passion and anger because you were provoked into this response, you slam the lamp down on the man's head and he dies. So there is a level of risk, recklessness associated with manslaughter, but you weren't coming home on the drive thinking, I can't wait to kill this person.

1:10:06I need to kill this person. A lot of it comes from the provocation, like you were in a crime of passion almost. The sentencing for manslaughter is typically anywhere between zero to 40 years. And then the third charge that was being considered for this case, the harshest of the three, was second degree murder, which is intentional homicide that is not premeditated. If it's premeditated, it would be first degree murder. An example of second degree murder would be you're burglarizing someone's home and the homeowner comes home and you accidentally kill them. You didn't go in there with the intent to kill anyone.

1:10:38You're not trying to be a murderer. You're just trying to make some money, right? But you went there to rob the homeowner and then you killed them. You knew the risks associated with robbing someone. So to compare for manslaughter, you come home your wife's cheating on you it's the heat of the moment there's a shock of emotion that might have led you to do something when you're burglarizing someone's house and the homeowner comes home you can't argue i was in the heat of the moment i wasn't expecting them to come home it's their home you knew that there is a chance that they could come home yeah i mean this is exactly the definition of second degree murder it's murder yeah so you know there is intent but there's not necessarily premeditation of like we're going to go into their house rob their valuables and then kill them.

1:11:18Right. Now the DA was fighting for second degree murder charges, which a lot of people wanted to see first degree murder. But I guess legally, second degree murder made the most sense and it could lead to a life sentence. The DA argued with the jury, we don't treat animals or neglect even our pets in that way. If we have an animal in that condition, you take them to the vet. If you're not capable of providing the care for that pet, you get help. You can't say Lacey wasn't in pain. On murder, you have to have intent. Did they want to kill Lacey? I want to say yeah. They wanted to kill her. Lacey hadn't seen a doctor in 20 years.

1:11:54The jury said they would be indicted and charged with second-degree murder. So the parents will be tried. They have pled not guilty. And it doesn't seem like there is a trial date set yet. But it does seem to be like it'll be sometime in 2024. We will keep an eye out on that. It's just, it's a lot. both of Fletcher's bail were set at$300 ,000 each they used a bondsman which means they had to put up around 12 % of that bail so they would have needed $72 ,000 in cash to cover for the both of them which they paid and again shows that if they really wanted to help Lacey they could to a degree afford to help her the couple's attorney Stephen Moore released a statement on behalf of the parents and he said they don't want to relive the pain of losing a child through the media yeah wow they have been through a lot of heartache over the years anyone who has lost a child knows what it's like oh my god don't even start on that yeah that's even more triggering for parents to hear that all i saw were parents on reddit like ready for blood yeah the couple also went to post on facebook in just one sentence mom and dad love you so much about lacy's death they never mentioned lacy's passion for disney her favorite country song the way she loved to be active and move her body or engage in sports.

1:13:09Nothing. One Redditor wrote, Lacey's parents horrify me. How could they allow this to happen? They insist that she chose this life. If so, she wasn't in her right mind to choose. They had a duty to help her and not stubbornly say, fine, shit there then, until it became a living nightmare. That was absolutely evil in my opinion. If this was about pride, it's just as evil as if they tied her to the couch. if they restrained Lacey it was sadism it was still sadism even if they didn't restrain her because empathy and love would soften their hearts to not allow Lacey to suffer and be degraded like that other netizens just simply commented on this case there is no excuse there is no explanation what are your thoughts on this and if you're a parent do you have any extra thoughts on what it's like to be a parent like how can you see your child like that does it make sense to be in denial about something like this is the only viable theory that they just wanted to torture their only daughter please leave it in the comments and please be safe i will see you guys on wednesday for the next episode bye