NATIONAL BRIEFING / WISCONSIN
The mother of a diabetic 11-year-old girl knew her daughter was dying but disregarded advice from other family members to seek medical attention, prosecutors in Wausau say.
Leilani Neumann, 41, told a friend that “she sensed the spirit or angel of death present at her home” shortly before her daughter Madeline died on Easter Sunday in 2008, Marathon County Assistant Dist. Atty. LaMont Jacobson said in opening statements at Neumann’s trial.
He told the jury that the case wasn’t about religious freedom or parental rights, but “about the needless suffering and death of an 11-year-old child” who needed only some fluids and insulin to get better.
Neumann and her husband, Dale, were charged with second-degree reckless homicide in Madeline’s death. Dale Neumann, 47, was scheduled to face trial July 23. If convicted, each faces up to 25 years in prison. The first witnesses will testify Monday.
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