More than five years after their conviction, one of the parents of a Marathon County girl who died from diabetes while her family prayed over her has started serving his jail sentence.
Marathon County Jail staff confirms that 52-year-old Dale Neumann reported for jail September 1st, and will serve 30 days for now. Dale and his wife, 46-year-old Leilani Neumann, were both found guilty in 2009 of second degree reckless homicide in the death of their daughter, 11-year-old Madeline “Kara” Neumann. The girl died in 2008 from undiagnosed and untreated diabetes.
The Neumann’s argued that they believed Kara’s illness had spiritual causes, and that only God would heal her. Dale Neumann testified at his trial that going to a doctor would have been a sin and shown disobedience to God, whom he had absolute faith would heal the girl.
Both parents were convicted in separate trials and were each given six month sentences, with the ability to serve them separately in one-month increments. They also have to serve ten years of probation and do community service work.
A judge had stayed the sentences while the Neumann’s appealed, but lifted that order last winter after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to take up the case.
WSAU