Editor’s Note: This story includes mention of potentially triggering situations, such as child neglect.
Two Bloomington parents face felony neglect charges after the death of their 14-year-old daughter in July 2025.
A Monroe County Circuit Court judge issued arrest warrants Oct. 6 for Toris Mayfield and Jerry Mayfield Jr. on three counts each of neglect of a dependent resulting in serious injury, according to court filings. Each count is a Level 3 Felony and carries a three to 16-year prison sentence.
Toris Mayfield, the girl's stepmother, found the girl unresponsive in her bedroom July 2, 2025, and called 911, both affidavits state. The girl was pronounced dead at the hospital the same day.
Bloomington Police Department officer Robert Shrake wrote in the affidavit that the couple allegedly confined the girl to her bedroom and restricted her food access. The neglect began in February 2025, after the couple withdrew the girl from public school and began homeschooling her, according to the affidavits.
After being removed from school, the affidavit alleges the girl’s health visibly declined, with her weight dropping from 124 pounds in January 2025 to 80 pounds when she died seven months later. Her guardians did not communicate with her pediatrician about her weight loss, the affidavits state.
Jerry Mayfield Jr. was awarded full custody of his daughter in August 2024, and Toris was awarded full adoption of the girl that November, according to the affidavits.
The Indiana Department of Child Services received a report Feb. 19, 2025, that the girl allegedly said she was confined to the house and “school is her social life”, according to the affidavits. DCS did not conduct a follow-up because she was withdrawn from school.
On May 1, 2025, the girl was treated at IU Health Bloomington Hospital for leg swelling. According to the affidavits, the hospital noted that she had “poorly controlled ADHD, weight loss and marks on her skin.”
Her parents, according to the affidavit, reported to the hospital that she was intentionally spitting out food. The girl was discharged from the hospital with no known follow-up on nutritional needs.
Ring camera footage from inside the home months before her death allegedly show the girl’s bedroom stripped of bedding, carpet, clothing and other items, according to the affidavits.
Texts between Jerry Mayfield Jr. and Toris Mayfield allegedly document the withholding of food and different treatment with food options compared to the girl’s siblings, including a conversation where the allegedly discussed what food she was allowed to have.
It was also observed that her bedroom window had a screw in its frame, and her door locked from the outside, according to the affidavits. It also alleges that the girl appeared to be restricted from moving freely in the home without permission, and that she was captured on a Ring camera in her bedroom asking her adoptive mother permission to use the bathroom.
In the final autopsy report, the girl was found to have died from “complications of severe protein-calorie malnutrition and dehydration,” according to the affidavits.
