Sarah Moses
Cumberland Times-News
June 06, 2009 11:31 pm
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OAKLAND — More than a year since the death of 15-month-old Cheyenne Stein, family members are seeking closure on the case.
“I would like for people to know that the baby didn’t die by natural causes,” said Georgie Dawson, Cheyenne’s grandmother. “Nothing’s being done. She died for no reason. It’s sad a baby died for no reason and nobody’s being held.”
Cheyenne was found unresponsive at her Mountain Lake Park home at 10:31 p.m. on March 28, 2008, and transported by Southern Garrett Rescue Squad to Garrett Memorial Hospital. She was transferred to Ruby Memorial Hospital in Morgantown, W.Va., and died four days later.
Originally, Cheyenne’s mother, Amanda Stein, then Amanda Frazee, reported to Garrett Bureau of Investigation that she found her daughter sitting in her bed, slumped forward. Stein told police that the girl was not breathing. Both Amanda Stein and her boyfriend, Joe Stein, attempted CPR until the rescue squad arrived, according to police reports.
While police reports state that doctors initially found no obvious signs of neglect or abuse, at Cheyenne’s autopsy, it was discovered that the cause of death was a “blunt-force head injury,” according to the West Virginia Medical Examiner’s report.
Police reports included interviews with the doctor who had performed the autopsy that stated that the girl’s skull had been fractured at the top of her head. This discovery came on April 4, 2008. Later interviews with the doctor said that the injury would have occurred a few hours to a few days before Cheyenne was found unresponsive.
GBI reports stated that Amanda Stein told police that Cheyenne struck the back of her head on the floor after falling from a coffee table, but she didn’t bleed. She told police that throughout the previous weekend and up until that Friday, Cheyenne acted fine.
The morning and early afternoon of the incident, Amanda Stein had been meeting with Cheyenne’s biological father, Nathan Harvey, and a friend was baby-sitting the children.
Harvey said he was to visit both his daughters, Cheyenne and her sister, Promise Frazee, then 3, the day following the incident.
He said he received a text message from Amanda Stein saying he wasn’t going to see them, and later heard from a friend that Cheyenne was in the hospital.
“Then, that’s when I heard she was in the hospital,” Harvey said. “Then I called all the hospitals around. When all of them said there was no one by that name here ... I thought this was one of her excuses.”
Harvey said that two days after Cheyenne died at Ruby Memorial, he found out she had died.
The first time he got to see Cheyenne was at the funeral.
In the weeks following Cheyenne’s death, police talked to family and friends about the girls’ home life as well as the relationship between Cheyenne and her older sister.
There were those who said they never saw any signs of abuse toward the two girls, and the relationship between the two girls was no different than most siblings that age.
Some family friends reported to police that the house was often messy, and that the two girls would be in the bedroom for hours without being checked on. Others said they heard Joe Stein encouraging Promise to call Amanda Stein names, including expletives.
One of the girls’ baby-sitters said on one occasion when Cheyenne was crying, the older sister put her hands over the younger’s mouth, and that Promise did not like being around Joe. The baby-sitter said she had seen bruises on Cheyenne’s arms and had kept photos of bruises on both arms and the left side of the girl’s cheek in front of her ear.
She said Cheyenne would often come back to her care in the same diaper she had put on the previous day.
On April 15, 2008, as part of a follow-up investigation, officers obtained a search and seizure warrant for the residence, and began photographing and collecting evidence.
The investigation, according to State’s Attorney Lisa Thayer Welch, continues, and she said she could not make further comment.
According to GBI, the investigation is ongoing but there have been no new developments.
Tamra Camfield, assistant director for services at Garrett County Department of Social Services, released a statement that the department could not comment on matters concerning Cheyenne’s death due to the ongoing investigation.
Now, more than a year later, Dawson said they would like to see resolution not only on this case, but in settling the custody issues with Promise, who has been in Dawson’s custody since Cheyenne’s death.
Dawson said she and Harvey have tried to get the custody issues resolved, but that each court date has been rescheduled for one reason or another.
The entire experience has traumatized Promise, both Dawson and Harvey said, and they fear putting her through visitation or that giving custody back to Amanda Stein would make things worse. Harvey said it has been months since Promise has seen Amanda Stein or heard from her. In the meantime, he said that he has been jumping through every hoop in order to get Promise placed in his custody officially.
“It is our position that the proper place for Promise is ultimately with her father,” Camfield wrote. “We support the reunification of this man with his daughter and we await the judicial system moving this case forward.”
Neither Amanda or Joe Stein could be located to comment for this article.
Contact Sarah Moses at smoses@times-news.com.
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Photos
Cheyenne Stein