Donna Stone's Boone County trial opened in the starvation death of her granddaughter, Kyneddi Miller.

Wednesday was the first day of evidence in Madison. It was not a verdict. MetroNews reported a jury of 10 women and two men, plus two alternates, was seated Tuesday, with openings set for 1:30 p.m. Wednesday. WSAZ reported those openings were given and that court stopped after a second sheriff's witness. Her daughter's guilty plea and her husband's incompetency finding do not decide her case.

WSAZ reported that the first day of testimony in Donna Stone's trial began Wednesday afternoon, Oct. 14, 2026, in Boone County. Law&Crime reported she is 78. MetroNews, WV News, Law&Crime, and WCHS reported she is charged with murder by a parent, guardian, or custodian by refusal or failure to provide necessities, and with child neglect resulting in death, in the death of her granddaughter, Kyneddi Miller. WCHS reported she was found dead in Morrisvale on April 17, 2024. MetroNews reported lawyers picked a jury on Tuesday: 10 women and two men, with two alternates. It reported opening statements were set for 1:30 p.m. Wednesday in Boone County Circuit Court, and that the trial could run into early next week. WSAZ reported the openings were given Wednesday.

WSAZ reported the state's first witness was Boone County Sheriff Chad Barker, who described arriving at the home and the condition Miller was in. Law&Crime, citing WSAZ, reported that less than an hour into that testimony Barker described what he saw when he first went inside. WSAZ reported the state then called Captain Kevin McCarty of the Boone County Sheriff's Office. McCarty described the living conditions in the bathroom where she was found and said he briefly interviewed several relatives of her mother, Julie Miller. Court adjourned after his testimony. WSAZ reported the second day starts at 9 a.m. Thursday. In one sentence of that story, WSAZ spelled the girl's name Kynnedi. The rest of the station's copy, and MetroNews, WV News, and Law&Crime, spell it Kyneddi.

The accounts of who found her are not the same. Law&Crime reported that on April 17, 2024, Boone County deputies and paramedics went to a home in the 400 block of Cameo Road in Morrisvale on a call about a juvenile in cardiac arrest. It reported responders found her motionless on a foam pad on the bathroom floor and that she was pronounced dead at the house. Law&Crime reported the sheriff's office called what they saw "shocking," and quoted the office describing "an obvious emaciated, skeletal state." Law&Crime reported she weighed 58 pounds and that authorities said she had been dead for several days. WV News reported she was found on the bathroom floor that day and that investigators described her as "emaciated to a skeletal state." MetroNews reported state police troopers found her in the Morrisvale home, emaciated and in a skeletal state. A sheriff's response and a state-police discovery are both in this week's coverage. They are not the same sentence.

Three adults lived in the house with her: her mother, Julie Ann Miller, her grandmother, and her grandfather, Jerry Stone. WV News and Law&Crime reported Julie Miller pleaded guilty in November 2025. WV News named the count as death of a child by a parent by child abuse. Law&Crime named it as death of a child caused by a parent, guardian, or custodian. WSAZ, which did not give the November date, reported she pleaded guilty to death of a child by a parent, guardian, or custodian. MetroNews reported the plea as child abuse by a parent causing death. All four reported a February sentence of 15 years to life. Law&Crime reported Boone County Circuit Judge Stacy Nowicki-Eldridge imposed it, and quoted her at that hearing: "This child literally starved to death." WV News reported the term is the maximum under state law and that parole, if it comes, would be followed by 50 years of supervised release. That sentence is the mother's case. Law&Crime reported a judge found Jerry Stone incompetent to stand trial in August 2025 and that he was committed to a state mental hospital.

What Donna Stone told investigators is part of the accusation, as Law&Crime reported it. The outlet reported she told them Kyneddi had not attended school for about four or five years, that she believed the girl had gone outside the Cameo Road house only twice in four years, that the girl had an eating disorder and could not function on her own for several days before she died, and that she did not believe the girl had seen a doctor in four or five years. Law&Crime reported investigators said Julie Miller began homeschooling in February 2021 and cited an email to the Boone County school district about COVID-19 and the grandparents' ages. WV News reported Kyneddi had not been in school in person since late 2019 or early 2020, and that questions later arose about whether required assessments were filed. WV News also reported a 2023 visit by state police after concerns about how rarely she was seen in public. It reported state officials said the troopers spoke informally with local child-welfare workers and did not mean to make a formal abuse or neglect referral, and that the state Department of Human Services said it had no record of one. Prior trial dates of March 17 and July 21 were postponed, Law&Crime reported. Stone is on trial. She has not been convicted. All defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.