Family friend struggles to make sense of disabled teen's death

LUDLOW, Ky. — Joey Bishop was just like a lot of little boys: Chubby cheeks, a wide smile and a kind of belly laugh that made just about everyone around him giggle.

He grew to love video games, horror movies, baseball and later, girls and cars. Ever the eager student, he earned good grades even after Duchenne muscular dystrophy made it impossible for him to hold a pencil and eventually to use a computer keyboard.

Even as the brutal genetic disorder attacked his muscles and made it impossible for him to run with his buddies, he often would venture outside in his wheelchair to play with neighborhood kids.

No one could hold him back, Terrie Collins-Laytart said last week just days after the 18-year-old's mother and grandparents were charged with manslaughter in his Feb. 11 death.

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The neglect was so severe it led to bedsores that pumped toxins through Bishop's body, eventually killing him, charges allege. The case has seasoned investigators shaking their heads and wondering, like Collins-Laytart, how the teen became a prisoner in the home he shared with his mother and grandparents here, why no one seemed to know he lived there and what could have been done to protect him.

'None of this makes sense'

Collins-Laytart has known Bishop's mom, Jamie Bishop, now 40, for more than 20 years.

She said she was in the delivery room when Bishop delivered Joey. She was the first one to hold him. She heard his first cries. She felt his first breaths. She considers herself a second mother to Jamie Bishop and another grandma to Joey Bishop.

"He was so strong. He was a fighter,'' she said. "You couldn't help but fall in love with this child. He was so lovable, so sweet.

"Once he smiled at you,'' she said, "you just melted."

But that was not the Joey Bishop that Collins-Laytart saw when she walked into the intensive care unit Feb. 11 at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center after his mom called to say he had a collapsed lung. She mentioned he had a bedsore.

The thin 18-year-old lying motionless on his back connected to monitors and machines couldn't be the teen she knew, she thought when she arrived. She knew it was him only when she saw his mother in the room.

Nothing prepared Collins-Laytart for what she saw when a nurse turned the teen over a little later Saturday morning "to clean him up a bit." That is when she saw the "black, deep hole" on his back.

"He was just ate up," Collins-Laytart said. She saw others, too, on his legs and arms.

"To see him like he was was just heartbreaking,'' she said. "I don't understand this. None of this makes any sense."

Prosecutor: More charges possible

Bishop, a doting mother whom Collins-Laytart said "worshiped her children" now is accused of neglect that led to her son's death. She and her parents, Raymond Martin, 67, and Sharon Martin, 65, remained jailed Monday in Covington, Ky., on second-degree manslaughter charges. They face a court hearing Tuesday, where Bishop is expected ask the judge if she can attend Joey's funeral, tentatively set for Thursday.

Bishop told police she last washed her bedridden son about six weeks before his death, according to court records. Her father told investigators it had been months since the teen had been out of his bed.

"The intentional neglect of all three adults living with Joseph resulted in Joseph becoming septic from the infected sores and their failure to see medical assistance resulted in his death," according to the criminal complaint.

The didn't seek help because they feared they would get in trouble for neglect, records said.

Bedsores can be treated. However, if left untreated, the open wounds allow for bacteria to enter the bloodstream, which spreads through the body and can cause organ failure, according to the Mayo Clinic.

While Duchenne muscular dystrophy has no cure, medical advances are allowing those who have it to live into their 40s or 50s when most used to die in their teens, according to the Muscular Dystrophy Association.

Joey Bishop's sores exposed muscle and bone, according to court records.

Kenton County prosecutor Rob Sanders said the manslaughter charges will not be amended but said investigators are working to determine if the Martins and Bishop tampered with evidence in the case.

"Additional charges are possible," he said.

'It was like they made him a prisoner'

Police confiscated cleaning supplies, gloves and at least two receipts as well as six blankets and two prescription bottles in the home, according to a search warrant. They also confiscated two cellphones, neither of which were Joey's, Ludlow Police Detective Eric Love said.

Love said receipts found in the trash were from a nearby store and dated Feb. 11. They were for general cleaning supplies and gloves, he said. The blankets and towels were found bagged in the basement, he said.

Both prescription bottles were for the teen, but Love declined to say what the drugs were for or when they had been filled. Both still contained pills.

Investigators also found ointment, bandages and tape on a dresser in Joey Bishop's bedroom. In his room was a wheelchair, a twin bed frame with box springs, a small television, a gaming system and DVD movies.

"Not a whole lot," the detective said. And missing was a mattress.

Police found a twin mattress in the backyard during their search.

Love, who interviewed Jamie Bishop three times as well as each of her parents, said none of them showed remorse or regret about his death.

"It was like they made him a prisoner,'' Love said.

Stacy Leach, 46, had no idea the teen lived in the house just across the street from her. She never saw him.

And the Martins never once talked about him, she said.

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"I went over there when they moved in, and I asked who lived there,'' said Leach, who moved into her grandmother's house about seven years ago. Sharon Martin told Leach that it was just her, her husband, their daughter and their granddaughter.

The Martins often sat on the front porch, but Leach said she rarely saw Bishop because the woman worked. Leach and other neighbors would drive them to the store or run other errands because they did not have a car.

Leach said she knew they struggled financially, and she sometimes would give the family food. She also put out aluminum cans for Raymond Martin, who collected them to sell.

The mother of autistic twin sons, Leach said she often travels to Cincinnati Children's Hospital and gladly would have taken Joey Bishop at any time — if she only had known.

Court records indicate that the teen was to be seen every six months at Children's, but his last visit was Oct. 9, 2014. Before that, he was seen in 2012, Love said.

Sanders, the prosecutor, is seeking a subpoena to get Joey Bishop's medical records from the hospital.

Leach said she was devastated to learn about him and perplexed why her neighbors never sought help. She can't imagine the pain the teen must have been in.

"I just wished they would have asked,'' she said. "I wish they had just invited me in.

"This is Ludlow. I would have helped. Anyone would have helped,'' Leach said, shaking her head and choking up. "If we just would have known."

'I don't know what to believe'

Collins-Laytart moved about 90 minutes away, but she and Jamie Bishop remained in contact. She watched Joey Bishop and his sister grow through the years.

But Collins-Laytart's own family demands and health kept her from physically visiting in the past three to four years. She said she kept in touch by phone.

Jamie Bishop told her she pulled her son out of Covington's Holmes High School after he broke his arm while "roughhousing." She also told Collins-Laytart that her son graduated from school.

Now, she doesn't know if either is true: "I don't know what to believe."

The Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services has a closed case on Joey, Sanders said. He has subpoenaed that case file to see the nature of that investigation and when it was closed.

The Cincinnati Enquirer, through a public records request, is seeking the file as well.

"The question is: Why wasn't his case open and on-going?" Sanders said in an email to The Enquirer. "I don't know the answer to that question yet, but it's certainly a question we will be asking going forward."

Collins-Laytart has so many other questions about the teen and his care. But she can't bring herself to talk with his mother, who gave her authority to continue planning Joey Bishop's funeral last week after she was arrested.

In the meantime, Collins-Laytart is left with the images of Joey Bishop laying in a hospital bed as his family said goodbye to him:

• His sister stroked his arm.
• Raymond Martin kissed his forehead.
• Sharon Martin stayed away from him.

Jamie Bishop, surrounded by members of her church and her pastor, pulled up a chair and sat next to him, Collins-Laytart said. She stroked him as Collins-Laytart had done just moments before.

His mother whispered in his ear, Collins-Laytart said. She couldn't hear the mother's last words to her son.

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The nurses put a quilt over Joey before they disconnected the machines.

He died minutes later.

Follow Chris Graves and Meg Vogel on Twitter: @chrisgraves and @MegVogelphoto