NCarolina boy dies after 2 nights tied to a tree; parents face murder charges wrote:RALEIGH, N.C. - The parents of a 13-year-old North Carolina boy who died after being tied to a tree for two nights have been charged with murder.
Police say 41-year-old Brice McMillan of Macclesfield told a deputy that the child was being punished for disobedience.
The boy was forced to sleep outside Tuesday while tied to a tree. He was freed Wednesday morning, but then tied up again that night because of more bad behaviour.
The Edgecombe County Sheriff's Office says the child was still tied to the tree the following afternoon when he was discovered unresponsive by his stepmother.
Besides the murder charge, Brice McMillan and his wife, 36-year-old Sandra McMillan, have both been charged with felony child abuse.
Two couple' two other children, a seven-year-old and a nine-year-old, have been placed in the custody of the Department of Social Services.
Dwight Jefferson, an emergency responder with Pinetops Rescue Squad who was first on the scene, said he did not know the cause of the child's death.
"What we found was a 13-year-old laying on the ground - CPR being done by his father," Jefferson said. "Then we took over."
Sheriff James Knight said the boy was taken to a local hospital where he was pronounced dead.
It wasn't immediately clear what the couple used to allegedly tie up the boy.
Now I could get into some of the 'discipline' I survived as a child to say that this shouldn't have killed the kid, but the big question is, what made the parents think this was acceptable . . . my family is an insane religious cult, but nothing on these folks . . . I'm wondering if they had some help to come up with their discipline style.
