A South Carolina family who lived in a sickening house of horrors mistreated their disabled daughter so severely that she died in the “absolute worst case of child neglect” — even though her brother lived there as her paid caretaker.
Heather Baynard, a 14-year-old who suffered from cerebral palsy, died on April 11, 2022, hours after her father carried her cold, gray, listless body into a local hospital like a sack of potatoes, according to WYFF 4 in Greenville.
An autopsy performed a few days later showed the girl — whose legs had rotted so badly that one trial witness said they looked like raw meat — had been neglected for “many, many months,” according to Cherokee County Coroner Dennis Fowler.
It was, in fact, the “absolute worst case of child neglect” he had ever seen, Fowler added.
Last Thursday, a jury convicted Baynard’s dad, David; her mom, Bobbie Jo; and her 21-year-old brother, Edward, of murder and other crimes associated with the teen’s gruesome death.
“The suffering that she went through — not for a minute, not for an hour, not for a day, but for weeks — ladies and gentlemen, if that’s not malice, I don’t know what is,” Solicitor Barry J. Barnette said during the four-day trial last week.
“And to have that little girl in that situation where she can’t escape — she’s totally dependent on them,” Barnette said, gesturing to the family.
David Baynard, 55, and Bobbie Joe Baynard, 45, of Gaffney, were sentenced to life in prison for murder — as well as 20 years for infliction of great bodily injury upon a child, with another 10 tacked on for neglect.
Meanwhile, Edward Baynard — who, as an employee of Axcess Homecare, had made more than $25,000 over 18 months as Heather Baynard’s personal care aid — was convicted of the same crimes and given equally stiff sentences: 30 years for murder, 20 for inflicting great bodily injury and 10 years for unlawful neglect.
The parents will serve their terms consecutively, while the brother will serve them concurrently.
The horrific story began when David Baynard brought his daughter to the Spartanburg Regional Medical Center, the NBC affiliate reported.
She was unresponsive and cold — yet neither parent showed any emotion or sense of urgency.
David Baynard sat in the waiting room, playing on his phone as doctors worked on his dying daughter, who was pronounced dead during the night.
When cops went to the family’s Camp Ferry Road home the following day, they found a shocking scene.
Junk and garbage was piled several feet high inside, the affiliate said, and urine and animal feces from 40 malnourished, flea-infested pets decorated the floors, according to Local 12.
Cops had to wear safety suits and respirators just to go inside the house, which was rife with fleas, flies, maggots and roaches that had made their homes inside the piles of trash.
“A lot of feces in the home, both from the cats and the dogs; urine, which created a huge ammonia-type smell,” Cherokee County Sheriff Steve Mueller said.
The animal excrement had infected the girl’s skin and other tissues, Barnette told the court during the trial.
That led to her inexplicable condition, with a witness who was at the hospital saying her legs looked like “raw meat.”
“This is the worst case of neglect that we have ever seen in this county,” Mueller said at the time.
Doctors and coroners testified that they’d never seen anyone in such horrid shape — with one witness even saying it would have been better if the teen had been killed swiftly instead of enduring such terrible, long-lasting suffering, the station said.
Prosecutors were equally shocked.
“Nobody in this world – especially a child with special needs – should have to go through anything like this,” Barnette said afterward.
“It was horrible. Heather was left to rot to death.”
