Gov. Jim Justice outlined his administration’s efforts to sort out the state’s handling of a neglect case where a 14-year-old girl wound up dying “emaciated to a skeletal state.”
And the governor again confirmed a State Police trooper drove to a local child protective services office to request a referral following a March 2023 visit to the girl’s home. But Justice cast doubt on whether the trooper went into the office, and the governor questioned what combination of state actions could have saved the girl.
During a state news briefing on Wednesday, four reporters asked Justice questions about state actions in response to a possible child protective services referral about the girl’s situation. Yet another question focused on concerns that the state’s ombudsman for the overloaded foster care system faced ongoing interference prior to her resignation this week.
“Is there anybody in the world that doubts my commitment to transparency? You know, I’m going to be that way. I’m going to be that way period,” Justice said as the questions rolled in yet again.
Justice said his administration is gathering information from government agencies as part of an ongoing investigation. Those could include the local school system, the State Police and the state Department of Human Services.
“We are having each one of those agencies gather the information and then report the information to our office. And we have very experienced lawyers here in our office, and a report will be put out as soon as we gather the information,” Justice said in response to a MetroNews question.
“I don’t know any better way to do it. We’ve got several different agencies that are involved, and so we’ve got to gather the information first. Now once we gather the information, if we have reason to believe we didn’t get all the information or there’s people that are withholding stuff and everything, then we’ll dig deeper. If we gather the information and everything looks in order, we’ll report what we’ve got and move forward.”
Last month, 14-year-old Kyneddi Miller of Boone County was found dead on the bathroom floor of her home. Her mother and grandparents have been charged with felony child neglect causing death.
According to investigators, the teen had not attended school since late 2019 or 2020 and hadn’t been outside the house more than a couple of times in the last four years.
Questions have swirled about whether state agencies provided oversight that could have saved her life.
A West Virginia State Police call log and audio from a March 2023 visit by a trooper to the home described “making a CPS referral on it also; that way they can follow up on it,” according to reporting by WCHS television.
Last week, the state Department of Human Services distributed a statement saying the agency has no record of receiving that child protective services referral.
“Unfortunately, DoHS never received an abuse or neglect referral relating to the death of Kyneddi Miller, and was therefore not involved in the life of this child prior to her passing,” stated Cynthia Persily, secretary for the Department of Human Services.
“Additionally, we are aware of information suggesting that West Virginia State Police intended to make a referral on this child in March 2023, however, a comprehensive search of DoHS records suggest no referral was ever made.”
In response to a question by WCHS television reporter Bob Aaron, Justice said his administration has confirmed that the trooper’s cruiser was in the parking lot of that office.
But, the governor said, “the people in the building say they don’t have any recollection of him being in the building; they don’t have any recollection of a report or anything like that. So we’re surely not confirming that we got a report or whatever.
“But from what I understand too, it was significantly before the bad situation happened. The point is, if you’ll just let the thing play out — that’s all I’m asking to do — let the investigation play out and somebody’s really dropped the ball, they won’t be here to drop the ball again. That’s all there is to it. That’s exactly how I feel.” He continued by questioning what might have resulted from timely intervention.
“From the standpoint of the trooper’s reference and all this kind of stuff, you know, I think it was a year prior to this terrible situation with this child. Now that doesn’t really matter a whole lot because if it was a year prior and we should have followed up on it and didn’t follow up then who knows that we could have not made things a whole lot better.
“We’ll find out. The investigation will be done. And when the investigation’s done, we’ll know, we’ll know for sure.”
He concluded, “We have tragedies. We try to do better.” And “if we find out that somebody’s done something wrong, we’ll address it. We’ll not only address it, we’ll address it very harshly.”
