Date: 5/22/2009 4:18 PM
WAUSAU, Wis. (AP) — A jury has begun deliberating in the trial of a mother who prayed instead of seeking medical help for her dying daughter.
Marathon County District Attorney Jill Falstad said Friday in her closing argument that 41-year-old Leilani Neumann let her 11-year-old daughter Madeline die of untreated diabetes as a test of faith.
Neumann has been charged with second-degree reckless homicide in Madeline’s March 2008 death at the family’s rural Weston home.
Defense attorney Gene Linehan says the Neumanns are good Christians who tried to save their daughter and didn’t know she was that ill.
Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.
Drifter gets 55 years in Wis. torture-slay case
Date: 11/11/2008
PORTAGE, Wis. (AP) _ A member of a gang of drifters was sentenced Monday to 55 years in prison for helping to kill another woman in the group and torturing the woman’s 11-year-old son.
Candice L. Clark, 24, pleaded no contest to being party to second-degree reckless homicide and guilty to charges including child abuse. She was also sentenced to 45 years of extended supervision and must serve about 47 years before being eligible to apply for early release.
Clark’s attorney did not return a message seeking comment.
Court records list multiple spellings for the defendant’s names, with her first name spelled Candice and Candace and her last name Clark and Clarke.
She was among three drifters charged in the death of 36-year-old Tammie Garlin, whose body was found buried last year behind a Portage home. Garlin’s then-11-year-old son also was found naked, severely beaten and burned in a locked closet.
Investigators believe the gang crisscrossed the country, running financial scams and stealing identities to support themselves.
Police found the group in Portage in June 2007 while looking for Clark’s 2-year-old daughter, whom she had kidnapped from foster parents in Florida.
They found the kidnapped girl there, along with Garlin’s son who was locked in a closet streaked with blood. Garlin’s body was found buried in a shallow backyard grave.
According to a criminal complaint, the boy told detectives the gang had burned him with hot water and whipped him with an extension cord as punishment. Doctors had to amputate several of his fingertips and three of his badly burned toes.
The case spurred an outpouring of sympathy for the boy and forced the Florida Department of Children and Families to assign specific workers to track missing children.
Two other group members were charged in the torture and killing.
Michaela Clerc, 22, is serving 37 years in prison.
Michael Sisk, 26, was found guilty in August of second-degree reckless homicide. He also pleaded guilty or no contest to nine other charges. His sentencing date has not been determined.
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.
PORTAGE, Wis. (AP) _ A member of a gang of drifters was sentenced Monday to 55 years in prison for helping to kill another woman in the group and torturing the woman’s 11-year-old son.
Candice L. Clark, 24, pleaded no contest to being party to second-degree reckless homicide and guilty to charges including child abuse. She was also sentenced to 45 years of extended supervision and must serve about 47 years before being eligible to apply for early release.
Clark’s attorney did not return a message seeking comment.
Court records list multiple spellings for the defendant’s names, with her first name spelled Candice and Candace and her last name Clark and Clarke.
She was among three drifters charged in the death of 36-year-old Tammie Garlin, whose body was found buried last year behind a Portage home. Garlin’s then-11-year-old son also was found naked, severely beaten and burned in a locked closet.
Investigators believe the gang crisscrossed the country, running financial scams and stealing identities to support themselves.
Police found the group in Portage in June 2007 while looking for Clark’s 2-year-old daughter, whom she had kidnapped from foster parents in Florida.
They found the kidnapped girl there, along with Garlin’s son who was locked in a closet streaked with blood. Garlin’s body was found buried in a shallow backyard grave.
According to a criminal complaint, the boy told detectives the gang had burned him with hot water and whipped him with an extension cord as punishment. Doctors had to amputate several of his fingertips and three of his badly burned toes.
The case spurred an outpouring of sympathy for the boy and forced the Florida Department of Children and Families to assign specific workers to track missing children.
Two other group members were charged in the torture and killing.
Michaela Clerc, 22, is serving 37 years in prison.
Michael Sisk, 26, was found guilty in August of second-degree reckless homicide. He also pleaded guilty or no contest to nine other charges. His sentencing date has not been determined.
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.
