“I tried to get everybody to help me here, and nobody would help me,” Christina Boyles, 42, said through tears during a hearing before Wood County Circuit Court Judge J.D. Beane.
Boyles and her husband, Herbert, 42, were arrested in June 2018 after Parkersburg Police responded to their 32nd Street residence and found the then-21-year-old man malnourished and with severe ligature wounds indicating he had been restrained, reports said.
Family members interviewed by detectives said the couple hit and kicked the victim on different occasions, starved him and sprayed cleaning chemicals on him. An investigation revealed the man, who was unable to speak because of a genetic disability, had several cysts on his pelvic region, possibly due to lying on a hard surface for an extended period of time, and open sores, police said.
Christina and Herbert Boyles were indicted on felony counts of abuse of an incapacitated adult resulting in bodily injury and neglect of an incapacitated adult resulting in bodily injury, as well as misdemeanor charges of abuse and neglect of an incapacitated adult.
Herbert Boyles pleaded guilty to the two misdemeanor charges earlier this year and is scheduled to be sentenced on Sept. 3.
Christina Boyles entered the same plea Thursday.
“There is some conflicting medical testimony that the state recognizes may prevent us from obtaining a conviction on the felony matters,” Assistant Wood County Prosecutor Lora Snodgrass said. However, she believes they “could easily prevail on the misdemeanor charges.”
Snodgrass noted the victim and his brother, because of their disabilities, would have likely been unable to testify.
When questioned by Snodgrass Thursday, Christina Boyles denied restraining her son so he wouldn’t leave the house. But when Snodgrass asked if the man was under the care of a doctor, Boyles said he was not and admitted he had unmet medical needs.
Her attorney, Joseph McFarland, with the 4th Judicial Circuit Public Defender Corporation, said that if the case had gone to trial, part of the defense would have been that Boyles’ sons are “so profoundly impaired that this woman is incapable of taking care of them.
“She’s just not up to it,” he said.
Snodgrass said Boyles had agreed to take custody of them after they lived in group homes in Mississippi.
“I hadn’t seen them … since they were babies,” Boyles said.
Her sentencing is scheduled for 9:30 a.m. Oct. 30. She faces up to two years in jail.
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Woman pleads guilty to abuse, neglect of disabled son
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