After 'horrific' death at home, parents of Louisiana woman may soon face murder charges (2024)

The scene that East Feliciana Parish deputies found on Jan. 3 at the home of a town alderman in Slaughter spelled untold misery.

Lacey Ellen Fletcher, a 36-year-old shut-in, was dead, her body sunken into a crater in the living-room couch, where she'd anchored herself. When she last left the spot was uncertain, said District Attorney Sam D'Aquilla this week. It might have been years ago.

“The caretakers just let her sit on the couch. She just urinated and used the bathroom on the couch,” D’Aquilla said. “It was so horrific.”

D'Aquilla said in an interview that he will ask a grand jury next week to bring second-degree murder charges against Fletcher's parents, Sheila and Clay Fletcher. He said Fletcher suffered prolonged neglect, possibly for years, before her death in the house near Hog Bayou.

Second-degree murder charges carry a mandatory life prison sentence with no parole for adults upon a conviction.D’Aquilla said it’s unclear when Lacey Fletcher last left the living room, or if anyone but her parents had laid eyes on her in the years before she died.

“On a murder, you have to have intent,” D’Aquilla said. “Did they want to kill her? I want to say yeah, they wanted to kill her.”

Sheila Fletcher called 911 that morning from the home on Tom Drive and deputies entered to a strong stench, said D’Aquilla, citing police and autopsy reports.

Lacey Fletcher's feet were crossed under her, sunk deep into the hole she’d worn through the upholstery and foam padding. The hole was filled with stool and urine. Severe ulcers covered her underside, which appeared “rotten to the bone” in photos, D’Aquilla said. Fecal matter was crushed into her face, chest and abdomen. Her hair was matted, knotted, and filled with maggots.

Following an autopsy, Dr. Ewell Bickham III, the parish coroner, ruled Fletcher’s death a homicide and pressed for an investigation, D'Aquilla said. Bickham declined to provide any information on the death, citing an ongoing investigation, and he did not respond to a public records request for the coroner’s report.

D’Aquilla, though, said the coroner found Fletcher died of “severe chronic neglect,” citing the ulcers, bacterial infections and other medical troubles. She weighed 96 pounds and also was positive for COVID-19, he said.

“The question on everybody’s mind is, how could they be caretakers living in the house with her and have her get in a condition like that?” D’Aquilla said. “It’s cruelty to the infirm. We can’t just let it sit.”

Despite the allegation, authorities have yet to arrest either suspect. Reached by phone, the Fletchers declined to comment, referring questions to their lawyer, Steven Moore, who did not return phone and email messages.

Sheila Fletcher, 64, has worked as a police and court clerk in Baker and more recently as an assistant to the city prosecutor in Zachary, according to her LinkedIn page. A Slaughter official said she resigned her post on the town’s Board of Aldermen on Jan. 24, three weeks after Lacey Fletcher’s death. She served for four years, most recently as mayor pro tem.

State business filings show Clay Fletcher is an officer of the nonprofit Baton Rouge Civil War Roundtable, which has a mission “to educate and foster an appreciation for the sacrifices made by all during the Civil War.”

Condolences poured in when Sheila Fletcher posted a short message in January with an obituary for her daughter.

“Mom and Dad love you so much,” she wrote on Facebook.

The obituary was just as spare. There was a photo of Fletcher smiling wide, eyes bright, but no details to color in her abbreviated life. And while more than 400 people responded online with support and prayers, few shared memories of Fletcher, none of them recent.

Sheriff Jeff Travis said he recently turned over an investigative report to D’Aquilla's office. He referred questions about the case to the district attorney.

D’Aquilla and Travis said they agreed not to arrest the couple before the grand jury hears evidence in the case.

“If we have an outright murder, we arrest the people immediately. If we have a case like this, where the parents aren’t going anywhere, sometimes they’re not arrested,” D’Aquilla said. “We’re all of the consensus that we’re going to let the grand jury handle it.”

Travis said it was a “complex case that has specialty testimony” from doctors and others, and he wanted a grand jury to hear it first before making any arrests.

Unlike murder, lesser charges such as manslaughter or negligent homicide do not require a grand jury for a district attorney to prosecute. Grand juries can indict, decline to indict or punt criminal allegations. Some prosecutors have used them for cover, to bury a politically sensitive case.

In a Jan. 18 interview, the couple told detectives that their daughter was sound intellectually to the end. Autistic, she had developed “some degree of Asperger’s syndrome,” D’Aquilla said, citing reports.

The lifelong condition is part of a category called autism spectrum disorder. Symptoms include trouble with social skills and obsessive focus.

Fletcher attended Brownfields Baptist Academy in Baton Rouge through 9th grade before entering a home-school program. As a teen, she experienced severe social anxiety and met several times with a psychologist over three years. She saw a doctor years later, in 2010, while in her early 20’s, but never since, her parents said.

Her parents reported then that Fletcher had anchored herself in the living room and refused to leave. They brought her meals and set up a potty. Fletcher instead relieved herself into a towel or on the floor, afraid to leave the couch.

The Fletchers considered getting a commitment order to place their daughter in a medical facility, but she balked and it never happened, D’Aquilla said, citing a police report. The couple reported that Fletcher hadn’t seen a doctor in the past decade because she’d never been sick.

“I don’t think they (did) anything after that,” D’Aquilla said. “I think if somebody would have seen her that something would have been done.”

D’Aquilla said the couple was “adamant” that Lacey Fletcher was “of sound mind to make her own type of decisions.” The couple said Fletcher never complained of her sores and that Sheila Fletcher would routinely clean them.

Last fall, Fletcher began eating less, they told detectives. She ate half a sandwich and Cheetos on Jan. 2. Sheila Fletcher told detectives she last saw her daughter alive at 10 p.m. that night and awoke in a chair in the living room to find her dead.

D’Aquilla said he hopes the prosecution will serve as a warning.

“They lost a daughter. I have, not much, but I have a little compassion for them,” he said. “But I think we have to send a message. You need to take care of your people better than you do your animals. I just want people to recognize, if you have a situation like that you have to take action.”