photo by: Steven Allen Adams
DoHS Cabinet Secretary Cynthia Persily, State Superintendent of Schools Michele Blatt, and West Virginia State Police Chief of Staff Maj. James Mitchell answer questions regarding the state’s involvement with a Boone County girl who later died of malnutrition.
CHARLESTON — Officials representing child welfare, education, and law enforcement in West Virginia addressed questions from the press regarding the state’s involvement — or lack thereof — with a 14-year-old girl who died in April.
Brian Abraham, chief of staff to Gov. Jim Justice, moderated an in-person press briefing Thursday afternoon in the Governor’s Reception Room regarding the death of Kyneddi Miller, 14, of Boone County. Sheriff’s deputies found Miller dead in April in what they called a “skeletal state.”
Miller’s mother and grandparents have been charged with child abuse causing death.
The state Department of Human Services which oversees Child Protective Services declined to provide any information to press regarding prior contact between CPS, Miller, or her family.
In an April 22 press release, DoHS cited State Code that states that all records concerning a child that are maintained by DoHS are confidential.
However, that same code section allows for the public release of information for child fatalities and near-fatalities as long as the identities of people reporting or making complaints of child abuse or neglect are not released. DoHS believes it is complying with this law by providing an annual critical incident report.
Since April, multiple media outlets across the state have filed Freedom of Information Act requests to state and local agencies, with Justice being asked about the case during virtual briefings and public appearances.
It has since been learned that Miller’s name had appeared in two prior CPS cases involving her family in 2009 and 2017. Miller was in virtual school during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and pulled out of public school in 2021. She was homeschooled with no required follow-up by Boone County Schools. And the West Virginia State Police conducted a welfare check on Miller in the spring of 2023, with one trooper stating in audio recordings that he was making a CPS referral and GPS data showing he went directly to the regional DoHS office to make the referral in person.
Abraham said that the Governor’s Office began an internal investigation in April of how state agencies handled the Miller case.
“As we gathered the information, the Governor asked us again to look at talking with all representatives of the agencies about what, if anything, happened that could have prevented the situation, if anything happened that caused the situation, and are there things we could have done or can do differently to prevent something like this occurring in the future,” Abraham said.
That investigation revealed that the trooper, who is now retired, did not follow proper procedures in place since 2015 to use the DoHS child abuse and neglect phone number, 1-800-352-6531. Abraham said all new troopers since 2015 are now trained to use the hotline, with calls from law enforcement given priority.
Abraham said one of the two troopers – one of whom he personally interviewed – did travel to the regional CPS office. According to Abraham, the State Police had found Miller healthy and not malnourished, finding no abuse of neglect with no intentions to make a CPS referral despite what was said on the radio recordings. There was informal contact made between the troopers and CPS workers, where they told workers that Miller said she was fearful of COVID.
While one of the troopers, who has not been named, could name the CPS workers he spoke with, the CPS workers did not recall meeting with the troopers, though they also could not say such a meeting didn’t happen.
“There was informal contact with the case workers…they relayed the information to those case workers, not intending to make any sort of formal referral or any accusation of abuse and neglect,” Abraham said. “In actuality, (the trooper) indicates that the girl made an indication to him from her that she was fearful of COVID and did not want to be around people because she was fearful of COVID.
“The office thought it was odd for someone of that age to have such a belief and he wanted to go to the department and at least make them aware of it and see if someone would call her and talk to her about it,” Abraham continued. “DoHS did not take it as a formal referral because there were no allegations of abuse and neglect. Nothing else was done about it beyond that day.”
Abraham said there was no wrongdoing by the troopers or the CPS case workers based on their investigation. While CPS has had prior contact with Miller’s family in 2009 and 2017, both of those contacts did not involve Miller herself, though her name was included in those two case files.
DoHS Cabinet Secretary Cynthia Persily encouraged the public and mandated reporters – those required by law to immediately report suspect child abuse and neglect – to use the DoHS child abuse and neglect hotline. Anyone showing up at a DoHS office to report abuse and neglect in-person will also be referred to the hotline or provided a room and a phone to call into the hotline. Those reporting immediate emergencies are encouraged to call 911.
Persily also said DoHS has contracted with a company to create a new response system to refer calls that may not rise to the level of abuse and neglect to refer those callers to other DoHS services.
“If the referral meets the criteria set out in law for abuse and neglect, there will be an investigation as we currently do,” Persily said. “If it clearly does not meet the criteria, it will be screened out. But there is a middle area, and I will tell you most often that’s related to poverty. We do not equate poverty to abuse and neglect, but there is this middle area. What we will undertake is the referral of those cases to additional supports in our system.”
State Superintendent of Schools Michele Blatt said he intends to work with the West Virginia Legislature to tighten up reporting requirements when it comes to home school families. Home school students are required to undergo assessments every three years.
If a home school student doesn’t complete the assessment, the school system can consider the student truant and take further legal actions. But many counties do not follow through on these requirements, including Boone County Schools.
“There was a lapse there of over three years where no one in the school system had the opportunity to put eyes on her or require anything from her,” Blatt said. “The West Virginia Department of Education is eager to work with the Legislature to really see how we can strengthen the guardrails around homeschool reporting requirements.
“We know we have a great deal of homeschool parents who do things the right way and take care of their kids and it’s the best choice for those families, I think that our 7,000 kids in the foster system is proof that not all parents do what is best for their children,” Blatt continued.
As to when and how much information state officials should make public involving the death of a child, Abraham said the state is looking to improve how it releases information in the future while also being sure to protect confidentiality.
“I think this got away from us, quite frankly, because of that general denial that started this quest that we were hiding something,” Abraham said. “Jim Justice wants us to be 100% transparent.”
Thursday’s briefing nearly didn’t happen after attorneys for Miller’s mother, Julie Miller, tried to get a circuit judge to halt the press conference during a hearing Wednesday. The attorneys alleged that a CPS investigator had attempted to interview Julie Miller without clearing it with her attorneys.
Abraham said the CPS investigator was sent by the local CPS office without the knowledge of DoHS or the Governor’s Office. The investigator was trying to close out a CPS investigation of Kyneddi Miller’s death, but Abraham called the action by local CPS “stupid.”
“I can’t find the words to explain how incredibly stupid it was for that worker to go to that facility and try to interview that person given what we’re doing here today and given the fact that they had been in the Governor’s Office as recently as last Friday being interviewed about this,” Abraham said. “Someone should have put their hand up and asked a higher-up within the department ‘do you think this is a good idea to go do this?’ That was not done…that was done at the county office-level.”
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