The Disturbing Case of Jeanette Maples

not too long ago i did a live stream and somebody asked me if i've ever cried while researching a case i'm not much of a crier so the answer is no but sometimes i do cover some cases that are so upsetting that they stick in my head for days after i cover them such as james bulger katie ruff emily jones and this this is definitely one of those cases too this case takes place on the 9th of december 2009 in oregon usa but it spans over a couple of years too at around 8pm that night

a woman named angela mcnulty called 9-1-1 from her home and stated that she needed an ambulance right away because her 15-year-old daughter was no longer breathing when the paramedics arrived they were shocked to discover that their child was 15 years old as her body was so small and emaciated the girl's name was jeanette maples her hair was wet she wasn't wearing a top and she had no pulse when the paramedics asked what had happened here angela claimed that she had simply fallen down and that she seemed to be fine an hour before she collapsed but

when they inspected jeanette's body closer the paramedics were even more disturbed at what they found angela was a 41 year old woman who was raising three children each of those children had different fathers but angela had a total of five kids two of them were still in foster care people who knew angela described her as a controlling person who seemed to isolate her children on purpose jeanette and her two brothers were put into foster care in 1995 because angela and her husband were incarcerated for drug offences after her two sons grew up they wrote a

letter to the family court judge overseeing their case begging to stay in foster care unfortunately jeanette wasn't so lucky and after five and a half years in foster care she was made to go back to her mother in 2001 and as soon as she regained custody of her child she began to physically and mentally abuse her in 2002 angela married a man named richard mcnulty he was a long-haul trucker and wasn't around too often because of his job he was described as a rather unintelligent man he would often hand over his hard-earned money to angela

with almost no questions asked the two of them also had a son together and in 2005 the couple along with the children moved to eugene and oregon and by 2006 jeanette began studying in cascade middle school in the middle of her sixth grade year some of the children made fun of her as angela sent her to school in a dirty yellow t-shirt and old sweatpants despite the name calling and the bullying about her clothes and appearance jeanette appeared to enjoy school and although she was rather quiet she did manage to make a number of friends

and she developed a passion for writing and reading poetry and she took her education very seriously and spent most of her time tucked away in the school's library because of the abuse that she suffered from her mother she tried her best to hide her injuries as she feared that if too many people found out the abuse would intensify but there were many days when she got changed into her gym clothes and her friend saw the bruises on her abdomen and legs which she said came from falling what janette loved most about being at school was

that it meant being away from home for a while her fellow students said that once the bell would ring she became noticeably anxious and reserved for many years the people who were close to jeanette tried the best to get the attention of the child protective services her step-grandmother was a woman named lynn mcnulty and she saw her grandchildren from time to time she tried twice to report the abuse to the relevant authorities and a parent of one of jeanette's friends along with the teachers at the school all called the department of human services after jeanette

confided in a friend in the seventh grade telling her that her mother abused her the friend had told her parents and school officials about jeanette's bruises in 2007 and they got in contact with this state child welfare office but the urgency representatives didn't want to act upon what they regarded as second-hand information the cps went to the mcnulty home but they quickly closed the case after angela denied abusing her daughter and blamed the accusations on jeanette she described her own daughter as a compulsive liar and the cps went on their way when jeannette finished the

eighth grade angela took her out of school and instead decided to homeschool her she was worried that if people continue to rare suspicion of abuse she could be caught and now jeannette had no escape from the emotional and physical abuse her siblings attended school and appeared happy for some reason angela tagged jeanette only in october two months before jeannette would collapse lynne mcnulty was briefly allowed inside their home and when she came inside she was horrified to find jeanette facing a wall because she was being punished by her mother she saw that jeannette was incredibly

emaciated and also had a split lip angela used the tired old excuse that she had fallen and that she was facing the wall because she had been misbehaving lynne mcnulty left the house and again called the child protective services begging them to act and do something this would be the last time she would ever see jeanette on the 9th of december angela beats her own daughter for the last time jeannette's frill body couldn't handle the intense torture anymore and heartbreakingly her body gave up on her the emergency services found your net on her back topless

in a dimly lit living room with extreme cuts and bruises on her face jeanette's body was incredibly small for her age due to the lack of nutrition she received and she was so emaciated that you could pretty much see her bones through her skin jeannette had no pulse but the paramedics desperately tried to save her life they put a tube in her lungs to assist her in breathing and performed cpr but despite their best efforts to save this poor girl she was pronounced dead by the doctors at the hospital upon arrival jeanette weighed a shocking

50 pounds and her front teeth were broken and there were severe wounds on her legs and back the police would soon uncover the true disturbing reality of what jeanette had to face on a daily basis this cps had failed her angela and richard mcnulty were arrested angela initially pinned all the blame on richard and when richard mcnulty was interviewed by the police they told him that his wife had turned on him so he came clean and told them everything about the abuse that jeannette had suffered at the hands of angela he told them that when

jeannette laid on the floor begging for her own mother to stop beating her angela would instead beat her even harder as she considered the begging to be misbehavior but by confessing to the reality of the situation he became an accomplice as he did nothing to stop the torment and torture of jeannette the doctor who performed an autopsy on jeanette said that she was so badly beaten he could not even determine which of the injuries killed her jeanette showed signs of prolonged starvation and dehydration to the point that her muscles had deteriorated and she had a

dangerously low body fat percentage just being as malnourished and dehydrated as she was could have been fatal or at least it would have weakened her body to the point where she was unable to recover from the violence she endured the autopsy also uncovered that jeannette had bleeding on the brain from extreme blunt force trauma to the head richard also said that jeanette was so desperate for water that she would drink from the toilet or the dog bowl angela had taken the faucets off the taps and locked them away so she couldn't drink when she wasn't

in every cupboard in the house was locked and only angela had the keys to open them the physical abuse i'm about to share is incredibly distressing so i do warn you before i proceed angela beat jeanette on a regular basis using disturbing methods of abuse and torture she would turn up the volume of the television to drown out the screams and she would take janette into her bedroom that would later be dubbed as the torture room once there she would force jeanette to take off all of her clothes and then once she was naked she

would use a belt or a stick to whip her and even use pliers on her skin she also forced janette to face the walls with her arms raised above her head for hours and hours at a time angela would stomp on her feet regularly so jeanette would often be able to only stand on one leg due to the pain of putting pressure on the other one she would also get her other children to go out and find dog feces from the garden and she would smear it all over jeanette's face and force it into her

mouth she would also purposefully beat her in the areas that she had already inflated extreme injuries to resulting in the wounds becoming infected she refused to take her daughter to get any medical treatment so instead she took a knife and cut the dead flesh away some skin became infected on jeanette's hips so angela took a knife and she cut all the skin off resulting in her hip bones being fully exposed investigators found objects that contained blood and pieces of jeanette's flesh after enduring the excruciating torture jeannette often had many open cuts and wounds that would

bleed so she was made to sleep on cardboard on the floor so that the blood would not seep into the carpet the carpet was pulled back by officers and they found her blood had flood over the saturated cardboard and soaked right into the carpet and its pad staining the wooden subfloor below she was often tied up after being beaten unable to soothe her injuries by rubbing them as her arms were tied behind her back angela also hit jeanette across the mouth with shoes which caused serious tissue damage to her lips which resulted in her lips

healing from the inside out the scar tissue that formed left her mouth deformed all the while jeanette's stepfather richard did absolutely nothing to stop any of this the doctor found at least 200 injuries she had never seen a more malnourished patient or an abuse victim with so many injuries jeanette also had pneumonia in the form of an abscessed lung that might have sent bacteria into her bloodstream causing shock and death the police discovered the room that they later dubbed the torture room where she was beaten and inside they found blood and human tissue splattered all

over the walls the police gathered evidence throughout the house and they discovered that somebody had tried to destroy evidence of abuse among items found was the piece of cardboard placed under jeanette as she slept on the floor to soak up the blood and they also found a broken wooden ruler that was covered in blood and it was thought to have been angela's weapon of choice two belts were also found that would have been used to beat jeanette along with jagged tree branches the belts were almost stiff with dried blood and the branches were stained red

at angela's trial her defense lawyer disgustingly said that she was not a danger to society and her daughter died but there was no evidence that she intended to kill her and that if anything she would be a victim if she was to go to prison yeah imagine even thinking that let alone saying it angela pleaded guilty to aggravated murder and she was sentenced to death for the torture and murder of her daughter she was the only woman to be sentenced to death in the state of oregon since voters reinstated their capital punishment in 1984 until

the 3rd of august in 2020 when her sentence was re-evaluated and it was changed to life in prison richard mcnulty pleaded guilty and was sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole until serving at least 25 years he denied abusing jeanette directly but admitted that he had failed to protect her from her own mother or report the abuse to the authorities and he has never appealed his conviction or sentence it's unclear why angela had such a hatred for her own flesh and blood and it's hard to fathom how anyone could do this to

an innocent person let alone their own child investigators discovered that when angela was five years old her mother was murdered and the case was never solved she spent the remainder of her childhood living with her father and two brothers her father was also abusive and would often withhold food from the children as a form of punishment this is a striking resemblance to what she would later inflict upon jeanette i can't even begin to imagine the pain that jeannette must have been in just imagine someone cutting off the skin of an infected wound and then looking

down to see your own hip bones exposed to be neglected by your own parents must be hard enough but for the mental and physical torture she endured for years must have been beyond excruciating angela is one of the few killers where it's even hard to find words to describe them she purposefully kept her daughter on the brink of death for her own sick and twisted enjoyments you