Lacey Fletcher’s parents admit role in daughter’s death after she was found ‘melted’ into couch & covered in maggots

THE parents of a woman who was found melted in their feces-covered couch have pleaded no contest to manslaughter charges.

Lacey Fletcher, 36, was found dead on a sofa at her parents Clay and Sheila Fletcher's house in Slaughter, Louisiana, about 20 miles north of Baton Rouge, on January 3, 2022.

Clay and Sheila, who were facing life in prison, changed their pleas nearly two years after details of their grim negligence of their daughter were revealed.

The couple agreed to plead guilty to manslaughter after deciding to withdraw their previous not-guilty pleas to second-degree murder, according to the Daily Mail.

East Feliciana Parish District Attorney Sam D'Aquilla called for the parents to be jailed immediately after entering their guilty pleas.

However, the judge allowed the couple to continue their bond until February 20, when they must surrender.

"The Fletchers are pleading no contest to the new charges. They had no choice. This is an open and shut case - they allowed their daughter to suffer unbearably on that couch," D'Aquilla told the Daily Mail.

"We want this case to be a message. We want to stand for the people who can't speak for themselves, to say this treatment will not be tolerated," he added, saying he'll pursue the maximum 40-year sentence.

'REMORSEFUL'

The Fletchers' attorney defended the parents after Monday's court hearing, "They loved their daughter to death. They were completely remorseful," the outlet reported.

"They were negligent, yes. It is clear they were negligent. They loved her to death, that is the true statement with the Fletchers. They loved their daughter to death," defense attorney Steven Moore told the Daily Mail.

"When you look back at it, you wonder, why? How could this happen? It did happen. But at no point did Sheila or Clay Fletcher ever have a single intent to harm their daughter. They loved their daughter to a fault.

"They are completely remorseful. Their life revolved around Lacey Fletcher. ... They lived for Lacey Fletcher."

GRIM FIND

Fletcher's maggot-riddle corpse was found partially naked and melted onto her parents' sofa in January 2022.

When police found her, she weighed 96 pounds.

A coroner told Fox affiliate KRIV at the time that the minute he walked into the house, he ran out and had to vomit in the front yard due to the harsh smell.

The room where she was found reeked of urine and feces, and the floor where the sofa stood was buckling due to pooling urine, according to court documents.

Fletcher, who was diagnosed with autism and crippling social anxiety, sat on the living room sofa for up to 12 years.

Neighbor Robert Blades previously told the Daily Mail that he last saw Fletcher exercising around the neighborhood when she would have been 21.

Blades told the outlet that he asked Clay about his daughter's whereabouts in 2018 after noticing the young woman hadn’t been seen for 15 years.

“I asked Clay because I hadn’t seen her in so long. I actually thought maybe she got married and moved on,” Blades said.

He said that Clay told him that his daughter still lived at home and was “fine” before changing the subject without explaining why nobody had seen her.

“I just took him at his word," Blades said.

“She appeared to be a happy girl, she liked fun things," he said of Fletcher.

"I never knew there was anything wrong with her until she became a teenager.

“There then seemed to be a change in her. From hanging out with a lot of kids, she hardly ever had any friends that went over to see her.”

The East Feliciana Parish coroner's office said Fletcher died from severe medical neglect, which led to chronic malnutrition, acute starvation, immobility, acute ulcer formation, and osteomyelitis - a bone infection that led to sepsis.