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CHARLESTON, W.Va. (WSAZ) - State bureaucrats and lawmakers met behind closed doors late afternoon Tuesday amid a WSAZ investigation into unanswered questions in the death of Kyneddi Miller, a 14-year-old who authorities say died from suspected child neglect at her home in Boone County.

WSAZ Investigates | Deadly Details Denied

WSAZ NewsChannel 3′s Curtis Johnson and Sarah Sager waited outside of the closed-door meeting -- afterward with Johnson attempting to speak with Department of Human Services Secretary Cynthia Persily, while Sager focused on speaking with House Speaker Roger Hanshaw, R-Clay, and Senate Finance Chairman Eric Tar, R-Putnam.

Persily did not answer any of Johnson’s questions, but hours later had plenty to say in a written statement attacking WSAZ NewsChannel 3. The station was excluded from receiving that statement via email.

West Virginia University law professor Patrick McGinley reviewed the statement and added perspective Wednesday.

“Are we on solid standing seeking this information?” Johnson asked.

“You’re doing what you should do,” McGinley replied. “This is what freedom of the press in this country is about.”

In one photo, Kyneddi Miller appears to be a seemingly happy 14-year old. In April, investigators found Kyneddi’s body in a skeletal state inside her home.

Investigators say Kyneddi’s had not eaten for months. Deputies charged her mother and two grandparents with child neglect resulting in death.

All three have pleaded not guilty to the charges.

The girl’s death has caused us to ask for weeks: how could this happen? And what did state officials and Child Protective Services know before Kyneddi died?

On April 23, West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice said, “You know, Curtis, the CPS folks, from what I understand, had no idea about this child, no idea whatsoever.”

At that time, we asked the Department of Human Services to verify the governor’s comments.

Instead, a spokesperson for the Department of Human Services directed WSAZ’s Curtis Johnson to a news release on the state’s confidentiality law.

Johnson found that release made no mention of a portion of the law which states: In case of a child neglect fatality, the state shall make public information relating to the case.

He even found a federal manual which explains that law is meant -- to inform the public with basic information, including any prior history... between the child and CPS.

That’s exactly the request we made using the state’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). Our request was denied.

Soon afterward, the governor did arrange for Johnson to sit down exclusively with Department of Human Services Secretary Cynthia Persily. She claims there is no history with Kyneddi.

WSAZ Investigates | Deadly Details Denied follow-up

Johnson: You’re saying there was no telephone calls about this kid? There was no referrals about this kid? There was no investigations about this kid? There was nothing with this kids name on it in your agency?”

Persily: That’s correct.

However, an anonymous letter, received exclusively by WSAZ, tells a much different story. It details two referrals to CPS involving Kyneddi -- one in 2009 and another in 2017. The letter even includes intake numbers assigned to the cases, along with dates, times, and even the names of supervisors and workers.

According to the letter, Kyneddi’s name was listed both times in the CPS system. Then, there was audio and a call log that WSAZ obtained from West Virginia State Police. It references a third referral involving Kyneddi.

In the audio, a trooper is heard talking with a dispatcher after a welfare check on the teen in March 2023.

Radio traffic stated, “on that CAD call reference that welfare check, I just made that CPS referral if you can just put it in the notes on it.”

Our WSAZ investigation prompted lawmakers to send the agency letters with questions. Their questions led to a closed-door meeting Tuesday with Secretary Persily and members of the governor’s staff.

We waited outside the door for Secretary Persily -- hoping to get some answers. But she wouldn’t say a word.

Just hours after that silence, Persily had a lot to say in a statement attacking WSAZ for releasing information from the whistleblower in our investigation. WSAZ was excluded from receiving that statement via email.

The statement read: “Unfortunately, DoHS never received an abuse or neglect referral relating to the death of Kyneddi Miller, and was therefore not involved in the life of this child prior to her passing. Additionally, we are aware of information suggesting that West Virginia State Police intended to make a referral on this child in March 2023, however, a comprehensive search of DoHS records suggest no referral was ever made.”

West Virginia State Police told us Wednesday that the agency stands behind its response to WSAZ, as well as its description of the trooper’s actions.

Secretary Persily then said, “Despite what has been reported by WSAZ, previous cases from 2009 and 2017 have nothing to do with the death of this young lady. We are extremely disappointed by the disclosure of information relating to those prior matters by an anonymous informant and by members of the local media.”

Persily, in that same statement, went on to say, “The Department is prepared to make any and all criminal referrals to the appropriate authorities regarding this disclosure.”

Johnson asked McGinley about the responsibility of Persily’s statement.

“I think it’s totally irresponsible and inconsistent with her duty as a secretary of one of most important government agencies in West Virginia,” McGinley said. “To blame others rather than be transparent, which is obviously what this situation calls for, she digs herself deeper and makes threats that are not based in law or fact.”

As Johnson broke away to interview Persily, Sager stayed down an adjacent hall to interview lawmakers. While waiting for that interview, the governor’s chief of staff made a loud announcement about our station in the Capitol halls.

Chief of Staff Brian Abraham could be heard yelling down a Capitol hallway, “Channel 3 is banned.”

It all was going on as Sager and Johnson were working to learn more about Kyneddi Miller’s case. Abraham can be heard saying, “You’re not very good at your job.” He went on to say, “You are not doing a very good job at all.”

All of this played out as Sager was waiting to interview state Sen. Eric Tarr, R-Putnam, and Speaker of the House Roger Hanshaw, R-Clay, about their closed-door meeting with the Department of Human Services and members of the governor’s staff.

Sager: Yeah, nobody is allowed to talk to us anymore because we are at the Capitol in a taxpayer building. Please roll on all of this. Where we are doing our job as journalists. We are doing our job in a taxpayer-funded building and we are no longer allowed to be talked to, according to Brian Abraham.

Hanshaw: Well, you’re allowed to talk to us.

Tarr: Yes

Sager: Well, I would like to know what happened at that meeting.

Tarr: We met with Secretary Persily and some of the governor’s staff about the child in Boone County who was found starved to death.

Among Sager’s questions, was Persily repeatedly saying her agency had absolutely no prior knowledge of Kyneddi.

“So do you feel that they were justified in not telling us the entire truth?” Sager asked Tarr.

“I think that probably it should have been handled a lot better than it was,” he replied. “I think that they were off guard with the questions not to mean they shouldn’t be asked and not that that not that they should have been prepared to answer them.”

Earlier this month, Secretary Persily repeatedly denied to WSAZ that the Department of Human Services ever knew about Kyneddi Miller, but our WSAZ investigation found that’s just not true. Lawmakers Tarr and Hanshaw say in the meeting that leaders of the department told them why they were withholding information.

Tarr: Those cases are not Kyneddi specific. They are Kyneddi adjacent. That’s where the confidentiality part comes into those, and they were able to show that to us, that when you have it not directly related to the child specifically, it’s something they can’t disclose in the public disclosure.

Sager: Here’s what I’m having hard time wrapping my head around. We know, and we have the audio recording of last year, a state police making a CPS referral. Yet Curtis was told by Ms. Persily over and over and over again at least four times that there was no referral and and that one I know was Kyneddi specific, not Kyneddi adjacent. So we were, how, how is that one not coming into play?

Tarr: That’s part of the one of the questions that that we had asked to that gets into the prosecutorial side of an investigation on why is there not a case number for that and where did it originate from so that there’s. I have no documentation or no ability to say that that they have any right now that that call is recorded anywhere beyond that call, and that’s that’s one of the issues that I think has to be looked at in the process from my perspective as a legislator. One of the things I want to make sure of is that we have processes that are that haven’t been broken, that aren’t broken.

Sager: This is a a 14-year old. I have a 9-year-old and an 11-year-old. This 14-year old was 40 pounds, starved to death on a mat. That’s, that’s unfathomable. My 9-year old weighs like 60 pounds so this, this it angers me because federal law says it’s not whether the lawmakers want to tell us about it. It’s whether the public wants to know and the public wants to know about this and they’re demanding to know about this. We’re getting tweets and emails constantly saying what’s happened? What’s the next update? The grandparents were arrested yesterday and we are constantly stonewalled by the executive branch. As you can see, we’re going to be stonewalled even further, and that’s what has me fired up is we’re doing our job as journalists. Do you feel like you all? It’s a check and balance, do you feel?

Hanshaw: We have to do our job as legislators in ... much the same way we have to, we have to learn what we can and then craft the law based on circumstances that that transpire here in the state. We’re quite sympathetic to that.”

Tarr: And there’s good reason for you to ask questions. And then also I think you would agree that in the process you wouldn’t want a prosecution of somebody who was responsible for any part of that process and that child’s harm failing because of them disclosing information that could impair that investigation going forward to make sure that that person answers for what they did. So in that process and that’s I think I honestly believe having had the conversations in there and understand why they were trying to stonewall this. They’re trying to figure out how to get the answers to us without interfering with with the prosecution or potential prosecution and current investigations going on in this case.”

Both West Virginia lawmakers repeated that this is all a process.

Hanshaw: Look, there’s two sides to process, and both of them are important. There’s what the process is, and then there’s whether a process is followed. and both both of them matter and what we have to do is look at both. So part of what we do is say, do we have the right process in place? And we learn each time whether we do or don’t. but then we also ask, OK, was the process that we actually have implemented and followed? Yeah, and one, we have a lot of control over one. We have no control over really as legislators. So we have to learn everything we can about the first.

Tarr: And we’re getting cooperation to figure out how to get into that because they under they they are seeing some of those issues that if something had been different in code then we could have responded differently this way. that’s some of these conversations and questions were asking in there.

Lawmakers say Secretary Persily has agreed to testify at interim meetings in August. Earlier this month, we filed a second document request with the Department of Human Services for information on the cases we learned about through the whistleblower letter. And despite the news release issued Tuesday night stating they had no involvement in Kyneddi’s life before she died...

The department told us as recently as Monday that they need until June 5 to respond to the request.