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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

2-Year-Old Dies While Family Slowly Starves

Ted Bridis Associated Press

Police investigating the death of 2-year-old Jeffrey Mitchell walked through the living room of the family’s home. Nice furniture. VCR. Stereo. Golf clubs.

Then they looked in the kitchen and found little more than a bottle of cooking oil, a spice rack and trays of ice cubes.

Jeffrey had died of starvation, and his gaunt parents are charged with murder and wanton endangerment.

“You saw his distended stomach and bones and that was it,” said Tim Kaltenbach, the county prosecutor. “It was like something out of the Third World.”

Investigators say the family went days at a time without eating, yet had enough money to keep on paying the premiums on their children’s life insurance and lived in an immaculate apartment in one of the better neighborhoods of this western Kentucky city of 27,000.

Investigators were at a loss to explain why it happened. They were investigating the father’s claim that he had lost his job and had fallen into debt.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” said Detective Bruce Watson, an 18-year veteran and father of three sons. “We had a lot of grown men crying after what they had seen. This kind of thing is not supposed to happen in the United States.”

Billy Gene Mitchell, 45, and his wife, Susan R. Mitchell, 37, pleaded innocent Wednesday. Bail was set at more than $1 million apiece. The couple, both unemployed, said they couldn’t afford lawyers.

Inside the couple’s apartment, disgusted detectives found two surviving siblings - ages 3 and 6 - also suffering from malnutrition. Jeffrey’s 3-year-old sister, Melanie, weighed less than 17 pounds and couldn’t hold her head up without help.

Detectives said the family’s kitchen was empty, with only a jar of water and two trays of ice cubes in the refrigerator. It appears the family went days without eating and fed the children nothing but water for the last week, police said.

The family’s two other children were in fair condition Thursday at a hospital. Six-year-old Billie, weighing 28 pounds, fared best because she had been eating breakfast and lunch at Lone Oak Elementary.