Teen dies, starved and alone

Abused and starving, Chester Lee Miller, 18, was forced sometime this month to make a desperate 1,000-mile bus journey from the home of his mother and stepfather in Hazleton, Pa., to the Florida Panhandle, a place from which his natural father had earlier sent him packing.

Aboard the bus, in terminal after terminal, town after town, Miller said, he cried and begged strangers for help.

Weighing little more than 60 pounds, the famished teenager with sunken eyes finally arrived in Milton, Fla., about 20 miles north of Pensacola, only to be rejected again. There, authorities said, his relatives shut him out of their trailer home on Saturday and literally dumped him at an apartment complex.

"He looked like a Holocaust victim," said Janice Goodman, at whose door Miller knocked, pleading again for help. "I never would have thought something like this would be in Florida or the United States."

Severely malnourished and succumbing to extensive organ failure, the youth died alone yesterday in a Florida hospital room.

His mother and stepfather, Lyda Miller, 37, and Paul Hoffman Sr., 38, who were charged earlier this week with aggravated assault and reckless endangerment, face additional charges, police said last night: homicide.

And in Milton, population 7,400, the stranger who took in the dying boy nobody wanted said her family is trying to raise money for a funeral.

"We're trying to at least let him have a decent burial," Goodman said. "It's the least we can do." A relative of her family has donated a burial plot.

Though still hazy, the picture emerging of Chester Lee Miller's life is one of suffering and torture.

Before he died, Miller was able to tell authorities that his father, Robert Lee Miller, dispatched him to Pennsylvania last year to live with his mother and stepfather in Hazleton, about 120 miles north of Philadelphia. He told of being kept mostly in one room, often forced to stand for hours in a corner, being beaten every day, fed only scraps of food, and not allowed out of the house to go to school or see friends.

Charged earlier this week, the mother and stepfather remained jailed last night under $500,000 bond each. Hazleton Police Chief Edward Harry said that within a week, investigators would upgrade the charges against them to homicide.

Angry and sickened, Luzerne County District Justice Joseph Zola reacted with outrage at the couple in his courtroom on Tuesday. According to a report in a local newspaper, Zola looked at photographs of the emaciated, 5-foot, 3-inch teenager and said: "Did you see these? Do you believe this? This is so bad. How can people do this?"

Hoffman told the judge that he was on disability for mental illness and was "deeply sorry" for his actions. "I have no idea why I did it," he said.

In court papers, the couple admitted forcing the teenager to stand in a corner of their house for as long as 12 hours at a time. If he moved, Hoffman would hit him, according to the affidavit of probable cause.

Zola made the defendants stand in a corner of his courtroom throughout Tuesday's hearing.

In Florida, Janice Goodman's brother, Charles Blanchard, said Miller told them that his mother and stepfather had made him sign a paper saying they had not starved or abused him.

"It's a shame that something like this could happen in this country. I've never seen anybody who looked like that - never seen anybody in that condition.

"Somebody begs for help, nobody helps him, and lets him starve like that," Blanchard said, incredulously. "He begs for help and nobody helps."

Blanchard and Goodman said that when young Miller went to his uncle's house on Saturday, the uncle told him he couldn't stay. A friend of the uncle's drove the youth to Goodman's apartment complex.

Goodman said Miller, who could barely stand, asked if he could come in, have a shower and get some sleep. "I said, 'Come on in.' There was no way you could turn your back on him."

Goodman then called her mother, who called police. Officers took one look at Miller and called for an ambulance.

He was taken to the Santa Rosa (County) Medical Center. Goodman and other members of her family visited him daily. Miller underwent intestinal surgery and had to be revived Monday after his heart stopped beating.

Goodman and her family said they had expected him to survive and were shocked to learn of his death yesterday morning.

Police in Hazleton and Milton are trying to put together the details of Miller's life and death.

According to Milton Police Detective Mike Daughtery, Miller said "he'd been here about a week and a half. But right now, we're thinking he wasn't in his right mind. We don't think he was here nearly that long."

Two other children living with the couple in Hazleton were turned over to a state social-service agency Tuesday, police said. They were in good health.

Investigators said they had located Miller's birth father and planned to interview him.

An autopsy will be conducted in Florida tomorrow. Luzerne County District Attorney David Lupas said yesterday that he was sending investigators to Milton to be on hand when the postmortem is conducted.

"It's awful," Lupas said. "It's one of the most horrible cases of abuse I've ever seen."

Matthew
Chapter 5

1: ¹ When he saw the crowds, ² he went up the mountain, and after he had sat down, his disciples came to him.
2: He began to teach them, saying:
3: ³ "Blessed are the poor in spirit, ⁴ for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
4: ⁵ Blessed are they who mourn, for they will be comforted.
5: ⁶ Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the land.
6: Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness, ⁷ for they will be satisfied.
7: Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.
8: ⁸ Blessed are the clean of heart, for they will see God.
9: Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.
10: Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, ⁹ for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
11: Blessed are you when they insult you and persecute you and utter every kind of evil against you (falsely) because of me.
12: ¹⁰ Rejoice and be glad, for your reward will be great in heaven. Thus they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
13: ¹¹ ¹² "You are the salt of the earth. But if salt loses its taste, with what can it be seasoned? It is no longer good for anything but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.
14: You are the light of the world. A city set on a mountain cannot be hidden.
15: Nor do they light a lamp and then put it under a bushel basket; it is set on a lampstand, where it gives light to all in the house.
16: Just so, your light must shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your heavenly Father.
17: ¹³ "Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have come not to abolish but to fulfill.
18: Amen, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or the smallest part of a letter will pass from the law, until all things have taken place.
19: Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do so will be called least in the kingdom of heaven. But whoever obeys and teaches these commandments will be called greatest in the kingdom of heaven. ¹⁴
20: I tell you, unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter into the kingdom of heaven.
21: ¹⁵ ¹⁶ "You have heard that it was said to your ancestors, 'You shall not kill; and whoever kills will be liable to judgment.'
22: ¹⁷ But I say to you, whoever is angry ¹⁸ with his brother will be liable to judgment, and whoever says to his brother, 'Raqa,' will be answerable to the Sanhedrin, and whoever says, 'You fool,' will be liable to fiery Gehenna.
23: Therefore, if you bring your gift to the altar, and there recall that your brother has anything against you,
24: leave your gift there at the altar, go first and be reconciled with your brother, and then come and offer your gift.
25: Settle with your opponent quickly while on the way to court with him. Otherwise your opponent will hand you over to the judge, and the judge will hand you over to the guard, and you will be thrown into prison.
26: Amen, I say to you, you will not be released until you have paid the last penny.
27: ¹⁹"You have heard that it was said, 'You shall not commit adultery.'
28: But I say to you, everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
29: ²⁰ If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one of your members than to have your whole body thrown into Gehenna.
30: And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one of your members than to have your whole body go into Gehenna.
31: ²¹ "It was also said, 'Whoever divorces his wife must give her a bill of divorce.'
32: But I say to you, whoever divorces his wife (unless the marriage is unlawful) causes her to commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.
33: ²² "Again you have heard that it was said to your ancestors, 'Do not take a false oath, but make good to the Lord all that you vow.'
34: But I say to you, do not swear at all; ²³ not by heaven, for it is God's throne;
35: nor by the earth, for it is his footstool; nor by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King.
36: Do not swear by your head, for you cannot make a single hair white or black.
37: ²⁴ Let your 'Yes' mean 'Yes,' and your 'No' mean 'No.' Anything more is from the evil one.
38: ²⁵ "You have heard that it was said, 'An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.'
39: But I say to you, offer no resistance to one who is evil. When someone strikes you on (your) right cheek, turn the other one to him as well.
40: If anyone wants to go to law with you over your tunic, hand him your cloak as well.
41: Should anyone press you into service for one mile, ²⁶ go with him for two miles.
42: Give to the one who asks of you, and do not turn your back on one who wants to borrow.
43: ²⁷ "You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.'
44: But I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you,
45: that you may be children of your heavenly Father, for he makes his sun rise on the bad and the good, and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust.
46: For if you love those who love you, what recompense will you have? Do not the tax collectors ²⁸ do the same?
47: And if you greet your brothers only, what is unusual about that? Do not the pagans do the same? ²⁹
48: So be perfect, ³⁰ just as your heavenly Father is perfect.

In part, this boy is a victim of our "liberal" government's policies, which have prevented removing these people from the streets, and putting them in mental hospitals or prosecuting and imprisoning them for fraud and creating a public nuisance. If we did that routinely, this boy would have been picked up by authorities early in his bus trip, discovered not to be the standard, adult drug-addicted scammer, and possibly helped before it was too late.

Megadittoes, as they say on Rush. The same principle is at work across many sectors of our bloated unfocused welfare state. The undeserving soak up the resources and the real emergency cases are shut out.

Like you, I ignore the scams run by the professional beggars infesting parts of my own city. In this particular case, however, the kid was not doing a lot of the things typically associated with modern mendicants. He wasn't sitting on the sidewalk in the financial district, begging from the curb in front of a liquor store, et cetera. It's truly hard to understand what happened on those buses from Pennsylvania to Florida. Five foot three and 62 pounds???

I think it's worth posting this previously linked story from the Pensacola News Journal. It has a few additional clarifications.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

PUBLISHED SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 2002

Autopsy reveals few clues in suspected starvation death

Toxicology results may take 8 weeks

Carmen Paige@PensacolaNewsJournal.com

It could be two months before police investigators know exactly why 18-year-old Chester Lee Miller died.

A three-hour autopsy Friday revealed Miller was 5 feet 4 inches tall and weighed 100 pounds - nearly 40 pounds more than estimated when he was taken to Santa Rosa Medical Center a week ago.

A toxicology report is needed to determine the entire cause of his death, and that could take six to eight weeks.

Miller's mother, Lyda, 37, and her boyfriend, Paul Hoffman Sr., 38, of Hazleton, Pa., have been arrested. They are accused of starving and abusing him.

"I only have a partial cause of death," said Dr. Andi Minyard, associate medical examiner for District I. "It will be listed as peritonitis due to a gastric rupture due to ... and that's the part I don't know yet - why his stomach ruptured."

Peritonitis is inflammation of the membrane that lines the wall of the abdomen and covers the abdominal organs, according to the American Medical Association's Encyclopedia of Medicine. It is a serious, usually acute and painful condition, almost always rooted in bacterial infection caused by another abdominal disorder.

An 18-year-old male who is 5 feet 4 inches tall should weigh 140 to 150 pounds, said Dr. E.W. Sutton, medical director at the Santa Rosa County Health Department in Milton.

"It sounds like his stomach ruptured, and he had an infection inside the cavity," Sutton said. "It could be connected to starvation. Or, perhaps after he starved for a long period, he ate a lot and that created a problem. Either way, it could be connected to starvation, if in fact he was starved."

Minyard said Miller's weight does seem low but said more study is needed.

"We'll be looking to see if he ingested any toxic substances," she said. "Then, we'll wait for more investigation from the police standpoint."

Miller arrived in Milton by bus from Pennsylvania a week ago, looking for his father, Robert Lee Miller. Janice Goodman let him into her home after he knocked on her door asking for a shower and a nap. Miller told her he was dropped off at the Quinn Bayou apartment complex and told to go find his father.

Goodman said he "looked like a Holocaust victim." Goodman called her mother, Norma Douglas, who in turn contacted the Milton Police Department. Emergency medical service was notified, and Miller was taken to Santa Rosa Medical Center, where he died Wednesday morning.

This case is being investigated by the Hazleton Police Department. The charges against Lyda Miller and Hoffman could be upgraded to homicide, depending on the results of the toxicology report. They are charged with aggravated assault, simple assault and recklessly endangering another person, and they are jailed in the Luzerne County Correctional Facility in lieu of $500,000 cash bail each.

Services for Chester Lee Miller are set for 1 p.m. Monday at Pace Assembly of God Church in Pace. Trahan Mortuary Services of Pensacola is handling the arrangements. Miller will be buried at Holy Cross Cemetery in Pensacola. Each organization donated its services.

"It will be a public service," said the Rev. Glyn Lowery, pastor of Pace Assembly of God. "We have schoolteachers who want to come but can't because of the time of the service. They will send a written story, and it will be read from the pulpit. The story will give a little bit of background about the tragedy of this little boy's life."

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