TASER

By Jillian Pikora From Daily Voice

A Littlestown-area couple has been sentenced for the horrific abuse of their adopted special-needs son, who weighed just 78 pounds at 14 years old, Adams County District Attorney Brian Sinnett announced this week.

Stacey Lynn Myers, 52, was sentenced to 11½ to 23 months in jail, while Todd Douglas Myers, 57, received 5 to 23 months, according to the DA’s office. Both will serve five years of probation after their incarceration at the Adams County Adult Correctional Complex.

The pair were convicted by a jury in August on felony endangering the welfare of children and prohibited offensive weapons charges, the release said. They faced a maximum possible sentence of 17 years in prison as a result of the verdict, according to the DA’s office.

The abuse came to light in March 2021 when a Children and Youth Services caseworker attempted a welfare check and Stacey Myers refused entry, Pennsylvania State Police said. Troopers obtained a court order and found the boy living in an unheated basement room described as “a storage room with a bed in it,” outfitted with a surveillance camera and no bathroom access.

The teen weighed just 77–78 pounds and appeared so malnourished that troopers called an ambulance to take him to a hospital, where doctors diagnosed “severe neglect,” investigators said.

Additional interviews revealed that the child was locked in the basement for hours, denied food because “the other kids needed it,” and wore adult diapers 24/7. He also had a broken finger, but did not know how it happened.

The boy told police that Stacey Myers grabbed him by the neck and threw him down the stairs and that both parents struck him with a board “sometimes with nails in it.” Troopers said Stacey repeatedly tasered him on various parts of his body. A Taser was seized from the couple’s kitchen cabinet during the investigation.

Former School Nurse Lost Certification

At the time of the abuse, Stacey Myers was working as a school nurse. She later lost her Pennsylvania “Educational Specialist II” certification for K-12 schools on April 4, 2024, following the charges filed in this case, state records show.

The teen was placed in trauma therapy and diagnosed with PTSD from the abuse, according to troopers.

The Myerses had fostered the boy from six months old and adopted him at age three. They received a $40-per-day adoption subsidy, which they unsuccessfully tried to increase to $70 per day in 2016 despite earning about $45,000 annually plus a tax-free $14,400 subsidy, according to court records.

“These sentences hold these two defendants accountable for the reprehensible way in which they abused their child,” Sinnett wrote in the release.