Judge calls Joetta Sells ‘broken human being’ in sentencing
ANDERSON, Ind. (WISH) – Judge Mark Dudley used the words “mind-boggling,” and “evil” to describe the neglect of a 15-year-old Anderson girl who prosecutors say weighed 40 pounds and nearly died while in the care of her grandparents.
“This was not isolated. This was prolonged,” Dudley during Monday’s sentence hearings for the grandparents, Steve and Joetta Sells.
Prosecutors allege that Steve and Joetta Sells locked the girl in a bedroom for more than a year, forcing her urinate in a bucket and defecate on herself while they continued to collect government assistance checks meant for her care. Photos of the now-16-year old girl were shown in open court. They depicted sheets stained with feces and a young girl on a hospital bed – her ribs and vertebrae clearly showing.
Both Steve and Joetta Sells were supposed to be sentenced to state prison Monday, but in the end, only Joetta Sells was given a prison term. Steve Sells was given a trial date.
The twist came roughly ten minutes after Joetta Sells was sentenced to 24 years in prison for her role in the neglect of a teen found last December in Madison County.
Steve, who prosecutors say offered an open plea to 12 charges including welfare fraud, neglect and battery, denied the battery charge when deputy prosecutor Stephanie Wade asked him if he was guilty of battery.
“No. I didn’t hit her,” Steve Sells said.
That prompted Judge Dudley to abruptly end his sentence hearing and set a trial date for November 17. Crystal Sells, Steve’s daughter, is also charged in the case. Madison County Prosecutor Rodney Cummings previously told I-Team 8 that Crystal was an “active participant” in the abuse of the girl.
Earlier, Dudley told Joetta Sells that he hoped she wasn’t “evil.”
“My hope is that you are just a horribly broken human being,” Judge Dudley said.
During her statement in court, Joetta Sells apologized for not “being able to defend (the children) and myself.” She alleged that Steve was controlling and would not allow her to properly care for the now-16 year old girl. But prosecutors pointed out that Joetta was able to care for herself and other children in the home, including doctors’ visits and making time for herself to take online college courses.
Joetta Sells told the judge that she realized the girl was locked in her bedroom at night but said she only learned of her advanced state of malnutrition when the teen collapsed on December 1, 2014 and nearly died.
First responders testified about Monday about the overwhelming foul stench in the Sells’ home and finding the 15-year old girl unresponsive, her lips blue with no pulse. Her feet and fingernails were covered in feces.
Joetta was asked about the stench but said it was noticeable until you were in the girl’s room.Holocaust victims
EMT/firefighter Eli Marshall and paramedic/firefighter Marcus Drinkut were called to the Sells’ home in early December after the girl collapsed. When they arrived they said they found her unresponsive, her lips were blue and she wasn’t breathing. During the ambulance ride to the hospital, they had to shock the girl’s heart, they said.
The men were among a handful of officers and first responders who testified Monday during the court hearing.
When asked to describe the teen’s condition, Drinkut said: “She looked like pictures you see out of the holocaust. (She’s) very thin, 40 to 50 pounds. You never expect to see a kid like that,” he said.
Marshall said the images from that emergency run still haunt him to this day.
“We just knew that we had a little girl that needed our help and we were there to do the job and we were more than blessed to have the opportunity to do so for her,” Marshall said.Teen’s condition
The teen’s current caregiver testified in court that the teen weighs nearly 100 pounds now, “shovels food in her mouth” but has a fear that her plate will be taken away.
She described the 16-year old has a good eater who had gone on trips this summer to the Indiana State Fair and is able to feed and clean herself on her own. It’s a far cry, the woman said, from where the teen was in January, when she first began giving her care.
“She was a skeleton with skin on it,” the woman testified.
Steve Sells and Joetta Sells pleaded guilty back in September to various charges including battery, neglect and criminal confinement. Police said the couple kept Steve Sells’ granddaughter locked in a filthy room and savagely beat her.
The Sells had told authorities that the teen, now 16, had refused to eat and had a chromosomal disorder.
The teen’s caregiver acknowledged the teen was autistic but said she was a good eater.
On Monday, after Joetta Sells’ apology, the judge said “people treat their pets better than” the teen was treated.
