Main: Donna Stone in court for a pretrial hearing in September 2026 (WOWK). Inset: Kyneddi Miller (WCHS).
The trial of a 78-year-old West Virginia grandmother accused of starving and neglecting her 14-year-old granddaughter to death began Wednesday, about two years after authorities found the teen "emaciated" and in a "skeletal state" inside the family's home, with authorities saying she had been dead for several days.
Donna Stone is facing charges of murder by a parent, guardian or custodian by refusal or failure to provide necessities and child neglect resulting in death in connection with the death of Kyneddi Miller, court records show.
Following opening statements in Boone County Circuit Court, prosecutors called Sheriff Chad Barker to testify as the state's first witness, Huntington, West Virginia-based NBC affiliate WSAZ reported. Less than an hour into his testimony, the sheriff relayed his recollection of what happened when he first entered the home where Kyneddi's body was found.
Stone's trial had previously been scheduled for March 17 and July 21, but both dates were postponed.
As Law&Crime previously reported, Julie Ann Miller, Stone's daughter and Kyneddi's mother, pleaded guilty in November 2025 to one count of death of a child caused by a parent, guardian or custodian. In February, Boone County Circuit Judge Stacy Nowicki-Eldridge sentenced her to 15 years to life in a state correctional facility. Miller could become eligible for parole after 15 years but would be required to serve an additional 50 years of supervised release.
Stone's husband, Jerry Stone, was also charged in Kyneddi's death. However, a judge found him incompetent to stand trial in August 2025 and he was committed to a state mental hospital.
During Miller's sentencing hearing, Nowicki-Eldridge excoriated the adults in Kyneddi's life for their failures to keep her safe and healthy.
"This child literally starved to death," she said. "No child should ever have to go through that."
Boone County Prosecuting Attorney Dan Holstein similarly said it was unimaginable to him how Miller could let her child wither away like that.
"As a father with my own children, and now grandchildren, I cannot imagine how someone gets to the point that you allow your child to get like that, so emaciated, and you don't even bother to get help," he said. "You just let them die."
The case began when deputies with the Boone County Sheriff's Office and paramedics responded on April 17, 2024, to a call about a juvenile female in cardiac arrest at a home in the 400 block of Cameo Road in Morrisvale. Kyneddi lived in the home with her mother, grandmother and grandfather, Jerry Stone.
Responders found Kyneddi lying motionless on a foam pad on a bathroom floor. She was pronounced dead at the scene. The sheriff's office said the child's appearance was "shocking," with "an obvious emaciated, skeletal state."
Kyneddi reportedly weighed just 58 pounds when she died.
In an interview with police investigators, Donna Stone reportedly confirmed that Kyneddi had not attended school for about four or five years. Authorities also noted that the grandmother said she believed Kyneddi had only left the Cameo Road home and gone outside twice in the past four years.
Investigators said Miller began homeschooling her daughter in February 2021, supposedly for medical reasons. An email obtained by authorities reportedly showed that Miller told officials with the Boone County School District that, because they lived with Kyneddi's elderly grandparents, they were concerned about the child contracting COVID-19 and spreading it to Donna and Jerry Stone.
Donna Stone allegedly told investigators that Kyneddi had an eating disorder and was not capable of functioning on her own for several days before her death. The grandmother also said she did not believe Kyneddi had seen a doctor in about four or five years.
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