Three people from the same South Carolina family will spend the next few decades in prison because they abused, neglected, and killed their severely disabled sister and daughter.
She died on April 11, 2022, at Spartanburg Medical Center. Heather Baynard was 14 years old.
The next day, police searched the Baynard home on Camp Ferry Road in Gaffney, which is the county seat of Cherokee County and known as the “Peach Capital of South Carolina.” After that, there would be another search.
The deputies did not like what they found inside either time.
The Baynard house was in a bad way. Law enforcement said that the smell of urine and feces was strong all over.
The person who was hurt had to live through it all and more.
Heather was called “medically fragile” in the warrants. People in her family say she had cerebral palsy.
She was kept in “deplorable conditions,” including a crib that was “filled with garbage, infested with roaches, and covered in animal urine and feces.” They wrote this in their report.
For four days this week, the trial began and ended. According to a report from Spartanburg-based CBS affiliate WSPA, 7th Circuit Solicitor Barry J. Barnette told the jurors that the animal waste broke down Heather’s skin and other tissues.
He also said that Heather’s body showed “extreme signs of disintegration,” which was a very graphic phrase.
The prosecutor said that someone who saw the girl’s legs at the hospital where she died said they looked like raw meat.
In one court document, Cherokee County Sheriff Steve Mueller wrote, “In the home, the dogs added to the terrible conditions.” “There was a lot of cat and dog poop and urine in the house, which gave it a strong ammonia smell.”
David Baynard, 55, and Bobbie Jo Baynard, 44, Heather’s father and mother, were charged with her murder in May 2022. After a while, the girl’s 22-year-old brother Edward Vincent Baynard was also charged with her murder and other crimes related to the house.
The son was charged with child abuse, neglect of a child or helpless person by a legal guardian, and three counts of mistreatment or torture of animals while taking care of his sister. He was a registered respite nurse and certified personal care assistant.
After the South Carolina Enforcement Division looked into the girl’s death, more than 40 animals were taken from the house and saved. The animal that was found inside was already dead. Because of how bad they were, two puppies had to be put down.
Every other animal inside was allegedly found to be “severely malnourished, dehydrated, and infested with fleas and worms.” According to SLED citing a veterinarian, two more dogs were too sick to be saved and had to be put down. The deaths of the three dogs were blamed on Edward Baynard’s alleged carelessness.
In April 2022, Mueller told WSPA, “This is the worst case of neglect we have ever seen in this county.”
According to the TV station, Cherokee County Coroner Dennis Fowler said at the time of Heather’s death, “It was very clear and obvious to me once I began my examination of this disabled child that there had been severe neglect from the caregivers.”
Heather had to get medical care every day because of her condition. Fowler told the judges that it was clear that her needs had not been met for more than a year.
There were charges of murder, unlawful conduct towards a child, and infliction of great bodily injury upon a child against the girl’s mother, father, and brother on Thursday.
The parents were given life sentences for murder, twenty years for badly hurting a child, and ten years for neglecting a child without a good reason.
The brother was given 30 years in prison for murder, 20 years for major injury to a child, and 10 years for neglecting a child without a legal reason.
The sentences were judged to go in a straight line, or one after the other, in each case.
