'She deserves something good in her life. I don't think that's what she had'
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EUGENE, Ore. -- Friends of Jeanette Maples set up a candlelight vigil to remember her after investigators left the house Thursday night, and neighbors struggled to comprehend what took place in their quiet corner of the River Road neighborhood.
Maples died Wednesday night after being rushed to the hospital with difficulty breathing. Her mother and stepfather now face murder charges. Prosecutors have alleged Angela and Richard McAnulty caused Maples' death through neglect, mistreatment, maiming and torture.
Investigators were at the Howard Avenue residence from Wednesday night until Thursday night, when they carted away trash bins and bags.
After investigators left the home, friends set up their memorial.
"What happened to her was just so horrible," said Meagan Clark, who attended Cascade Middle School with Maples. "She deserves something good in her life because I don't think that's what she had, What she went through -- it was just horrible. It's sad. And I wanted to do something nice for her."
Friends said Maples was a quiet girl, and that they always knew something was wrong.
Lynn McAnulty, the step-grandmother of Maples, said she called the Department of Human Services child abuse hotline between "3 and 8 times" to report her suspicions the teen was being abused.
As far as McAnulty knows, the family was not investigated.
"Not one of them responded," she told KVAL News. "I called anonymously. But still, it should have only took me one call for them to go out there."
Details about Maples and her family are still emerging. She enrolled at Cascade Middle School in 2006 and completed the 8th grade. Instead of attending Willamette High School, she enrolled as a homeschool student.
The family moved to Howard Avenue this year. Neighbor Ron Goss said he first noticed the family in Sepetember and October of this year.
Goss had only brief encounters with Maples.
"She was really shy," he said. "I would see her in the backyard with her dog, holding her dog on the side of her house. I waved at her a couple times and said hi. She was just real shy and would turn and walk away from me."
Goss said Howard Avenue is a quiet neighborhood where most people keep to themsleves. He now wishes he would have paid a little more attention to the family next door.
The case has had an emotional impact on the investigators from the Lane County Sheriff's Office who responded to the sceen Wednesday and gathered evidence over the next 24 hours.
"It's always more difficult when you have a victim that is, for late of better phrasing, an innocent victim," Capt. Bill Thompson with the Lane County Sheriff's Office said. "These things are terrible, and when there's children, there's youth involved, that makes it worse."
