Stepbrother charged in girl’s murder
The stepbrother of an 11-year-old girl in upstate New York has been charged with her strangulation death. Before her murder, the girl was starved and lived in a garbage filled house that also contained over 100 cats.
Alan Jones, 27, was indicted on a second-degree murder charge in the death of Erin Maxwell on Aug. 29. The girl died a day after she was found unconscious in her bedroom with a green cord around her neck, one end caught on a nail in a window frame.
Lindsey Maxwell, 35, the girl’s father, and Lynn Maxwell, 53, her stepmother, were each charged with six counts of endangering the welfare of a child.
“Erin was being raised in a home with over 100 cats, as well as caged poultry. The home reeked of animal urine. There was animal feces over 18 inches deep in one of the rooms,” State Police Capt. Mark Lincoln said.
Investigators found that Erin was given “minimal amounts of food” and routinely locked every night in a small bedroom. She weighed only 65 pounds, Lincoln said.
Information from: http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gYhsz...
