We need to be upfront about something before we start. The victim here is a minor and she is alive. Every court document, every news outlet covering the story refers to her only by her initials MJG. We are going to refer to her by the pseudonym Emma. What happened to this girl is documented in a 41page criminal complaint and the medical records are part of the public court record.
What we’re going to tell you is all on record, but the person it happened to deserves whatever privacy she could hold on to going forward. Emma was born in 2011 and is a member of the Onida Nation of Wisconsin, a tribal nation with a reservation in the Green Bay area. Before everything that happened to her, Emma was just a kid.
Her third grade teacher at Onida Nation Elementary School, Miss Quiver, remembered her clearly when investigators came asking. She described her as friendly and talkative. When the school went virtual in the spring of 2020, she remembered Emma sending her messages after the switch, saying that she missed her. Emma loved food.
We know this because when she was finally in a hospital bed and a nurse told her she’d be getting three meals a day, her eyes lit up as she started listing off all the options she could think of. Pancakes, M&M’s, tacos. She said she was looking forward to having vegetables. When she got her first chocolate pudding and asked for a second one, she said, “My dad will be so mad.
He doesn’t like when I eat that much.” >> Walter Samuel Goodman III was born in 1978. He had at least four children, three of whom are now adults. He has said that he still talks with one of them, but he hasn’t seen any of them in years. A court date over name changes was apparently the last time that he had seen them.
He worked at Domino’s for a while and by the time this case came to light, he had been diagnosed with cerosis of the liver and was on the transplant list. He described himself to investigators as having endstage liver disease. 2014, Walter met a woman named Melissa online. She’s also referred to in some documents by her nickname Missy.
They married on March 3rd, 2016. Melissa had two children from a previous relationship, an adult daughter named Savannah Lef Fever and a teenage son, referred to in court documents by his initials NM. For the sake of simplicity, we will be referring to him by the pseudonym Nate. By the time this case broke, Melissa was in her early 50s and according to the criminal complaint, she was significantly obese to the point of being nearly bedbound.
She had kidney disease and she rarely left her home. Savannah Lef Fever was 29 at the events of today’s story. She was of a similar build and also rarely left the house. She had previously worked in child care, including at the Ona daycare, and had transitioned to working from home, primarily doing administrative work and selling Mary Kay.
Her girlfriend, Kayla Stemler, moved into the family’s trailer on Hattie Lane in August of 2021. Kayla was around 28 at the time and was the only person who worked outside the home. Her job is one of the more important details in this case because Kayla’s professional background was in early childhood education and work with autistic children.
She had worked as an assistant teacher in a Head Start program and then joined the Wisconsin Early Autism Project where her title was advanced technician. She worked with children on social skills and school readiness. She described her work as individualized per child. All of this makes what we’re about to tell you very troubling.
>> Emma’s mother, referred to in court documents only by her initials AF, went to jail in the spring of 2020. Prior to that, Emma had been staying with her maternal grandmother, Joanne Close. A CPS worker contacted Walter and asked if he wanted to take his daughter. Walter said, “Well, she’s my daughter.
Yeah, of course I’ll take her.” Walter gained sole custody of Emma on May 1st, 2020. Up to that point, she had been a healthy, normal kid. The last time Walter had a real relationship with Emma was during a stretch when he was dating a woman named Dana. After that relationship ended, Walter went to jail and his contact with Emma ceased.
He told investigators the first time he saw Emma after that long gap, they painted Easter eggs. The point is, he had been largely absent from her life, and Emma didn’t really know him. Emma first met Melissa in April of 2019. When she moved in, she initially shared a room with Nate, sleeping on the top bunk of a set of bunk beds while he took the bottom.
At some point, Nate moved to the couch in the living room. When Kayla moved in in August of 2021, the living arrangements shifted again, and by that point, Emma had a bedroom to herself, one with a lock on the outside of the door. Nate was 15 at the time and in cancer remission. Melissa and Walter had spent years traveling back and forth to Children’s Wisconsin and Milwaukee for Nate’s treatments, sometimes being gone for days at a stretch.
During those absences, Savannah and Kayla were left alone with Emma in the trailer. What happened during those absences would later be documented in text messages. >> For the 2020 to 2021 school year, Emma was enrolled in fourth grade virtually. Starting in the fall of 2021, Walter told authorities she was being homeschooled.
In Wisconsin, that requires nothing more than filing a one-page form with the Department of Public Instruction once a year. No form of oversight or follow-up was required. DPI spokesperson Chris Buer was quoted as saying, “DI has no legal authority or responsibility to monitor or regulate or investigate the homebased private educational programs or homeschooling.
There is nothing in state law that exists to check up on that. If the form is not submitted, the student is technically truent, but it is up to the local school district and local law enforcement to find those kids in act. In this case, nobody did. Emma later told investigators she believed she was doing normal fifth grade school work, but she was 14.
She should have been in either the eighth or the 9th grade by this point. Melissa’s son Nate attended no in-person school either after CO, but that was because of his cancer diagnosis. Emma had no documented reason for missing school. Walter told people she was autistic. Melissa said she refused to eat, and Kayla, a woman professionally trained to work with autistic children, went along with a narrative about food refusal in the context of autism.
A neighbor named Anthony Bodway had known Walter for over a decade and reconnected with him around the summer of 2025 over a shared interest in four-wheelers. Walter brought Emma along to his house several times, told investigators he had no idea Emma was 14 years old. He thought she was either eight or nine. For Anthony, and I quote, “She didn’t seem mentally sick or physically sick.
To me, I thought she was a very sweet little girl.” But Anthony witnessed how Walter was treating her. He heard Walter tell Emma to sit on the steps and not say a word to anybody. He heard Walter tell her to shut up. And allegedly Walter also said, “I wish I could leave you in the woods and just get rid of you.” As well as, “I wish I could kill you.
” He also said that Emma would try to ask Anthony questions and Walter would get irritated and tell her not to say anything. When Anthony offered her food or water, she ate normally. He also caught Walter telling him Emma would dig through the garbage for food. Anthony told him, “Well, hello. You’re taking food away from her. She has to eat.
He called CPS after that. He told reporters later through an interview, “Talking to whoever I talked to through CPS, they said, “I’ll document this. I’m writing this all down. Thanks for reporting it. That’s all I got.” Anony’s call went nowhere. >> What happened to Emma in that trailer on Hattie Lane did not happen all at once.
According to the criminal complaint, investigators believe the neglect began around August 1st, 2021, and it continued until August 21st of 2025. Investigators described the neglect as chronic, and the evidence they collected makes clear that that was not an exaggeration. As we mentioned previously, the bedroom Emma occupied had a lock on the outside of the door.
When investigators executed a search warrant on August 27th, 2025, Detective Sergeant King found a barrel bolt lock hidden in the closet shared by Savannah and Kayla along with two long screws. When investigators held the bolt lock up to the holes, all four holes matched, concluding that Emma was being locked inside her room.
Her mattress had been taken away from her and she slept on the bare floor. Photographs on Melissa Goodman’s phone showed Emma lying on the floor of her bedroom in nothing but her underwear and socks with her spine and hipbones visible. Multiple images were timestamped across December of 2024 in March of 2025 showing a human figure on the floor of her room while Walter and Melissa’s iPad sat on a charging dock next to the television.
There was a camera in Emma’s room. Walter said he installed it around 2020 shortly after she moved in. The camera had a motion sensor and Emma’s every move was being tracked. If she was picking at her skin or doing something Walter did not like, he would tell her through the camera to stop.
Emma was not allowed to leave her room without permission. She estimated she left her room three or four times a day, always with supervision. She was not allowed to speak or ask for anything except to use the bathroom, and she would be accompanied to the bathroom door and waited on when she went. The reasons the family gave for monitoring her was that she stole food from the kitchen and according to Walter, that she had a history of hurting herself.
These are the two most common reasons we’ve seen terrible parents give when asked why they lock their children up. In this case, how is it they can claim that she was malnourished because she refused food, but was also constantly stealing food? Wouldn’t they be happy she was eating at all? Sometimes she would wake up in the middle of the night needing to use the bathroom and could not get out because the door was locked.
She told investigators sometimes she had to urinate in her room. >> Text messages from January of 2023 show Kayla telling Melissa that Emma had taken more than one bite of food at a time that she had used a belt on her for it. Melissa replied, “That’s fine. She deserved it.” In a separate message, Kayla told Melissa she will be fed before you come home tomorrow so she can wait until the next day for any more food if you choose.
August 15th, 2024, Savannah texted Nate asking him to unlock Emma’s door for her. March 4th, Melissa texted Savannah that Emma was not to be out of her room at all. Text from 2024 and 2025 shows Savannah asking Nate whether she could send Emma to retrieve things from another room for her while Savannah herself lay in bed. They referred to Emma as dummy and stupid across hundreds of text messages for years between every adult in the household.
March of 2025, Savannah and Kayla were again caring for Emma while Walter and Melissa were away. A text from Savannah to Melissa that month read, “I don’t mean to freak out. My anxiety just gets so bad when you guys are gone, but also I am just scared because of how horrible she looks. I’m scared we’re all going to go to jail or something.
” Melissa replied, “Yeah, I know she does, but she don’t sleep either, and that’s the biggest issue.” Savannah also wrote, “I just wish we could get her healthy enough looking to take her to the damn doctor to fix it.” But Emma was never taken to see a doctor. May of 2025, the text messages show Walter telling Joanne Close, who is Emma’s maternal grandmother, that Emma was on a trip with his cousin when she came looking for her.
Apparently, Emma’s mother was in the process of dying of pancreatic cancer. By August of 2025, Emma had not been to a doctor in 5 years. She had not been outside in years. She told investigators she believed the last time that she had played outside was when she was 10 or 12. She could no longer walk to the bathroom on her own.
She had to push herself up using furniture and hold on to objects to move around at all. Her knees were permanently bent from years of being curled up in the fetal position on a hard floor. Doctors later documented contractions in her shoulder. She could not lift her arms up all the way. Emma showered by her own estimate weekly or monthly depending on when she was allowed to do so.
>> On August 21st, 2025, at 5:28 in the evening, Walter called 911. He told the dispatcher his daughter was lethargic, moaning, and almost comeosse, but he framed it as a recent thing. He said she had been sick for four or five days with a stomach bug. He said she was autistic and didn’t like to eat.
The call was several minutes long. When the dispatcher asked how long she had been sick, Walter said she’d been sick five or six days. He thought it was just a cold because she had been throwing up. He again mentioned her autism. He said her clothes were huge and hanging on her. He said her eyes were open, but she’s not there.
Walter carried her out on the porch because he said the porch was broken and he wasn’t sure the ambulance could get inside. He described her weight by saying, and I quote, “I said she don’t eat.” Officers saw Walter carrying Emma down the driveway. Her collarbone, rib cage, hip, and cheekbones were all very prominent. She looked to be the size of a 6 to 8-year-old child.
Walter told them Emma had last been to a doctor approximately a year and a half ago, that he stopped her care because the doctor was weird. He said no medical services had come to the house for Emma. He said he did try to get her to eat and gave her insured drinks, but she usually refused them. Walter told officers Emma had been sick the last 6 days, just throwing up, normal kid stuff.
When asked where Emma’s mother was, Walter replied, and I’m quoting here, “She’s a whore.” A first responder noted Emma’s blood sugar at 24 mg per deciliter, which is severe hypoglycemia. Walter said he had given her a sip of wild cherry Pepsi to try to bring her sugar up because he said her mother was diabetic and thought that she might be diabetic, too.
Then why not get her care? >> Emma was transported to Saint Vincent Hospital in Green Bay. She arrived. She weighed 35 lb. She had a large bruise on the right side of her forehead, was hypothermic, and had pressure sores. She was intubated and airlifted to Children’s Wisconsin Hospital in Wawaossa. The following morning, August 22nd, investigators and CPS workers went to Children’s Wisconsin and interviewed Walter.
Said Emma was always the healthy one because she was never sick. He described her weight as something that fluctuated constantly, up to 60 or 70 lb when she slept, down to 40 when she didn’t. He said by the beginning of July of 2025, she had weighed 70 lb. A CPS worker pressed him on why he hadn’t called the doctor if she was losing weight.
Walter said Emma was walking and talking fine yesterday and then dropped. None of it matched the medical evidence. Emma’s malnutrition was not the result of sleep deprivation or autism. It was the result of years of inadequate caloric intake. And her entire body was riddled with evidence supporting that. The CPS worker asked Walter directly why.
If he had noticed Emma wasn’t eating and was losing weight, hadn’t he called the doctor? Walter said, “I didn’t call the doctor. I didn’t think anything of it. Later that same morning, officers paid a visit to the trailer. Kayla answered the door and initially said that Melissa was not home and that she had not seen her since the day before, but after she went back inside, she came out with Walter on FaceTime and Melissa.
She told the CPS worker that Emma had caught a little bug. Said Emma had come to them as a petite girl. So, they offered Emma food and sometimes she would eat it, but if she didn’t, they would offer her something else. The end of the conversation when pressed on why Emma had not been taken to a doctor, Melissa said, “Looking back now, we probably should have taken her in.
She said Emma had not been to a doctor because Walter didn’t like the pediatrician that she had.” Then she said Walter was going to switch Emma to the family doctor, but never did. Children’s Wisconsin, the medical team began the process of figuring out what had been done to this child’s body. Dr. Sand Deep Nurang, the attending physician, wrote the medical records that became part of the criminal complaint.
Emma’s body had essentially no fat left anywhere on it. Her ribs, her spine, and her hipbones were all visible through her skin. Her hair had thinned to the point of being sparse and patchy in places. Her skin was dry and flaking. She had pressure sores in multiple areas. She had lenugo. And if you don’t know what that is, that’s the fine body hair that grows when severe starvation strips away the fat that normally insulates the body.
This is most commonly seen in newborns and people in the late stages of starvation. Her BMI on a mission was 8.68. She was in the less than 0.01 percentile for both weight and height for her age. On August 22nd, the day after admission, Emma went into circulatory shock. Her blood pressure and heart rate dropped to critical levels.
She had to be given a blood transfusion. Following day, she developed acute refeeding syndrome. This is what happens when a body that has been starved for a very long period of time is suddenly given adequate nutrition. Again, this shift in electrolytes can be fatal, and managing it requires aroundthe-clock monitoring. Emma’s case, this was over the course of weeks.
Imaging showed insufficiency fractures to her vertebrae at T9 through T11 and to her left 11th rib. She had severe osteoporosis. Her vitamin D levels, according to the endocrinologist that was treating her, were undetectably low. She had optic nerve neuropathy in both eyes from vitamin deficiency. Her teeth showed diminished enamel and discoloration from malnutrition.
She had bilateral knee and hip flexion contraurs, bilateral shoulder contractions, and she required moderate assistance at her pelvis and trunk just to stand upright. Medical’s team conclusion was consistent with severe malnutrition over an extended period, likely spanning months to years. The clinical nutrition team told investigators that a child who shows no height gain over years almost certainly has been malnourished for that entire stretch, not for days or weeks the way that Walter was claiming. The last known
medical record for Emma was from September of 2020 when she weighed 58 pounds and was at the 25th percentile for weight. Between that appointment and August 21st, 2025, no doctor saw her. In those 5 years, she lost 23 lbs and failed to grow whatsoever. >> Emma remained in the Piku until September 1st, 2025, when she was transferred to a regular floor and exubated the same day.
Once she could eat my mouth, she was eager. She wrote on her whiteboard again and again, “I’m hungry. I need a snack. Can I eat?” Contrary to what Walter said, she wasn’t refusing meals. Despite everything, she also told investigators she loved her family. She just wish she didn’t have to be locked in her room and monitored with a camera.
The attending neurossychologist found Emma’s cognitive abilities to be broadly age appropriate. working memory, attention, language, visual, spatial skills, all in the low average to average range. She was not functioning at the mental level of a four to six-year-old as Walter had claimed. She had some difficulty with processing speed, likely related to her recent medical complications, but her cognitive baseline was intact.
Her third grade teacher had never seen any signs of autism. She was never in special ed. Her cognitive abilities were found to be age appropriate. There was no documentation during her hospital stay that suggested that she had autism. Walter’s explanation for 5 years of starvation wasn’t holding up. >> Out of County began its investigation on August 21st, 2025, the same day that Walter had called 911.
3 months later, on November 11th, the criminal complaint was filed. Four people were arrested and charged. 47year-old Walter Goodman III, 51-year-old Melissa Goodman, 29year-old Savannah Lef Fever, and 28-year-old Kayla Stemler. All four were held at the Outagami County Jail. Walter, Melissa, and Kayla were each held on a $150,000 cash bond.
Savannah was held on $100,000 bond. Each was originally charged with five felony counts. Three counts of chronic neglect of a child with consequence being great bodily harm and two counts of chronic neglect of a child with consequence being emotional damage. Combined, this is up to 105 years in state custody per defendant. At Melissa Goodman’s initial court appearance, out of county court commissioner Brian Figgy said, “Quite frankly, we have some incredibly disturbing allegations before the court today.
According to the allegations in this matter, the victim quite frankly was living in a house of horrors, but for the grace of God, she did not die. Melissa waved her preliminary hearing on December 16th, 2025 and was ordered to stand trial. On May 6th, 2026, she appeared by video conference. She pled no contest to one count of chronic neglect causing great bodily harm as party to a crime, one count of chronic neglect causing emotional damage as party to a crime, and one count of false imprisonment as party to a crime. Three other counts
were dismissed. Combined, those three charges carry a maximum of 46 years in prison. The judge asked if she was being treated for a mental illness. Melissa said she was, but added, “I’m of sound mind.” Melissa’s sentencing is scheduled for July 1st, 2026, and we will be keeping an eye out for updates as they become available.
And if she does get the maximum sentence, it is quite likely that she will die in prison. Kayla Stemler, the woman with a early childhood education background who could have easily taken one look at Emma and said, “Hey, I don’t think she has autism. Hey, I think we should be feeding her.” Well, she has a plea hearing set for the day after Melissa’s.
As of the date of this recording, in May of 2026, Walter and Savannah were both awaiting pre-trial conferences. All remaining parties are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. The trailer on Hadtie Lane is now condemned, and neighbors who spoke to reporters were shaken. Pam Medadina, who lived directly across the street, said she witnessed first responders carry Emma out.
She said, “I remember they carried her out. She looked very small. Her head just kind of fell to the side. I didn’t even know a child lived there. Ham said she used to see large grocery deliveries to the home, sometimes more than once a day. She said they ordered a lot of food. How could they do that to her? Anthony John, another neighbor, told reporters, “It’s way beyond horrible.
How can one human do that to another human regardless of what state of mind they’re in? I’m appalled because they let this go. The state let that go.” Anthony Bodway, who called CPS after witnessing how Walter treated Emma, put it plainly. It took her dad calling an ambulance to save her life. I don’t like that it went that far to get her some help.
>> Wisconsin’s Department of Children and Families website showed no CPS reports about this case before August 21st, 2025. News outlets contacted the outagami county department of health and human services, the agency responsible for handling the case, and asked whether any prior reports have been received.
The agency responded with a statement citing confidentiality laws and did not confirm or deny prior reports. The 90-day case summary that state law requires was overdue when reporters started asking questions in January of 2026. The agency said the delay was partly due to a request from the DA’s office and partly due to staff transitions.
Case also raised questions about Wisconsin’s homeschooling laws, which require nothing but a one-page annual form. Walter had claimed Emma was being homeschooled from 2021 onward, and no one checked on her. She was locked in a room for all that time. Emma’s cousin, Leslie Doctator, set up a GoFundMe for her in November of 2025, and just the first few days, it raised over $4,000 out of its initial $6,000 goal.
The goal was later raised to $22,000. As of May of 2026, it had raised over $21,000 from 537 donors. Funds were designated for home modifications to give Emma a safe and comfortable space, transportation to medical and therapy appointments, and whatever else she will need going forward. Emma was released from Children’s Wisconsin Hospital after weeks of intensive treatment.
She went to live with family on her mother’s side. She is now enrolled in school. In the months following her rescue, she grew 3 in and doubled her body weight, reaching 78 lb. Her cousin Leslie told reporters, “She’s a very vibrant little girl. She will tell you exactly how she feels about all situations.
” And I think that’s really what’s helped her to progress as far as she has. And she wants to go and play. She wants to go and run and we have to just keep reminding her just wait for your body to catch up. But she is getting there. The GoFundMe posted an update on March 27th, 2026. A family member wrote, “While we are careful not to share anything that could impact the ongoing criminal proceedings, we can confidently say that Emma continues to grow and thrive in every possible way. She truly is a miracle.
From surviving what she endured to the incredible progress she has made, her resilience is nothing short of astounding. We remain hopeful and encouraged every single day, knowing that with continued love and strength surrounding her, Emma’s future is brighter than ever.
