Parents Refuse Medical Help, Pray Over Daughter as She Dies

By Anastacia Mott Austin

Eleven-year-old Wisconsin girl Madeline "Kara" Neumann died this week of an easily-correctable complication of diabetes after her parents neglected to seek medical help for her, choosing to pray for her health instead.

The girl was later diagnosed with ketoacidosis, a buildup of acid in the body which occurs when there is too little insulin. Kara, as her parents called her, could have been saved with an injection of insulin and intravenous fluids.

But Kara’s parents, Dale and Leilani Neumann, claim they didn’t even know she had diabetes, saying that the last time their daughter visited a doctor she was three years old.

The Neumanns insisted that up until days before her death, Kara seemed just fine.

"It was something that came on suddenly," said Leilani Neumann to reporters at the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. "She went to birthday parties recently, she went sledding for two hours, she was perfectly fine until the last few days."

But Everest Metro Police Chief Dan Vergin says that the doctor at the hospital where Kara was taken had a different story to tell. "The doctor who did the autopsy and others have said she would have been showing signs for about six months," said Vergin to reporters. "She would have been symptomatic, very thirsty, lots of urination, dry skin for the last week. They felt she would have been quite ill."

The police were notified of the situation by Kara’s aunt, Ariel Gomez, who called the Weston County Sheriff’s Department the day of Kara’s death. Gomez called from California, where she lives and where the Neumann family lived until about two years ago.

Excerpts from the 911 call reveal that Gomez was quite concerned about her niece’s health. "My sister in law is, her daughter's severely, severely sick and she believes her daughter is in a coma," said Gomez to the dispatcher. "And she's very religious so she's refusing to take her to the hospital, so I was hoping maybe somebody could go over there."

Police officers and emergency workers were immediately dispatched to the home, where they discovered Kara lying motionless and her parents standing over her, praying. Despite the best efforts of ambulance staff, Kara was pronounced dead on arrival at a local hospital.

Police chief Vergin says that the parents remain convinced they did what was best for their daughter, and that they would do the same thing if it happened again. "These people truly believed their prayer and faith would heal their daughter. They have no question about that," said Vergin to reporters.

Current Wisconsin law states that parents can avoid prosecution for neglect if they simply turned to prayer instead of modern medicine to treat a child’s ailment. But legal experts say that it’s not so simple, and that a charge of neglect can include not taking an extremely ill child to a doctor.

"They firmly believe even if they had taken her to a doctor, if this was the time God had chosen for her to die, she would die regardless of medical interference," said Vergin.

"Our lives are in God's hands and whatever we go through we are just going to trust him," said Kara’s mother. "We need healing. We are going through the healing process."

Leilani Neumann told reporters that the family was now "in the hands of God." The couple’s other three teenaged children have been examined by a doctor but have not as of yet been removed from the home.

Added Neumann, "We ask if people can pray for us and give us our privacy as we grieve our daughter. We are remaining strong for our children. Only our faith in God is giving us strength at this time."