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46 Pound Woman Found Starved To Death

Posted: 6:05 am EDT October 25, 2007Updated: 6:46 am EDT October 25, 2007

At a house overrun with roaches, choked with cobwebs and smeared with garbage police found a 46 pound woman starved to death.

Officials arrested the victim's sister and brother-in-law Sunday. A grand jury charged them with manslaughter.

Police said Christine Baxter, 30, died of complications from malnutrition. She was blind, deaf and unable to feed herself.

Her sister, Jeanne Peterson and Peterson's husband Buel, were supposed to be her caregivers.

Paramedics found Baxter in the front yard of the house after a 911 call, but were unable to revive her. Investigators said one of the Peterson's made the emergency call.

Police became suspicious when the family wouldn't let investigators in the house.

When they finally got inside they found disgusting conditions.

Feces from pigs, dogs and cats roaming freely throughout the house covered everything. There were so many cockroaches it appeared the walls were moving.

Trash and rotting food was piled on the floor.

"Once we entered the residence, we saw what tragic, horrible conditions that the subject had spent the remainder of her life," said Sgt. Richard Roundtree of the Richmond County Sheriff's Office. "This is one of the worst scenes, of living arrangements, that we have run across."

Health Department officials condemned the house. Code enforcement officials say the house is extremely hazardous, and will be torn down.

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