DA charges parents who prayed as daughter died

An 11-year-old girl died after her parents prayed for healing rather than seek medical help for a treatable form of diabetes, police said Tuesday.

Everest Metro Police Chief Dan Vergin said Madeline Neumann died Sunday.

"She got sicker and sicker until she was dead," he said.

Vergin said an autopsy determined the girl died from diabetic ketoacidosis, an ailment that left her with too little insulin in her body, and she had probably been ill for about 30 days, suffering symptoms like nausea, vomiting, excessive thirst, loss of appetite and weakness.

Most parents would seek immediate medical help for a child who cannot speak, eat, drink, walk or breathe easily as was the case with Kara for about 48 hours before she died, Falstad said.

The girl's parents, Dale and Leilani Neumann, attributed the death to "apparently they didn't have enough faith," the police chief said. The couple face up to 25 years in prison if convicted.

Leilani Neumann, 40, told AP previously she never expected her daughter to die. The family believes in the Bible, which says healing comes from God, but they are not crazy, religious people and have nothing against doctors, she said. They believed the key to healing "was it was better to keep praying. Call more people to help pray," he said. The mother believes the girl could still be resurrected, the police chief said.

Police Chief Vergin said the parents once belonged to the Lighthouse Pentecostal Church but they became what he called religious "isolationists" involved in a prayer group of five people.

The most frighting quote above is "...they are not crazy religious people"; this my friends is complete loss of contact with reality scary crazy. I hope they get the maximum sentence. Murder is murder whether the weapon is a gun or religious fanaticism and stupidity.