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Background: The home in Fayette County, Pennsylvania, where the victim lived (WTAE/YouTube). Insets (clockwise from top left): Kourtney Eutsey (Fayette County District Attorney's Office); Sarah Shipley (WTAE/YouTube); Renesmay Eutsey (Fayette County District Attorney's Office); and Theresa Marie Shipley (Fayette County Sheriff's Office/The Tribune-Review).
The scope of a case in which a 9-year-old girl was apparently abused before she was dumped in a tote along a Pennsylvania river has expanded, with additional people now implicated in the alleged crimes.
Theresa Marie Shipley, 63, and Sandra Lynn Umensetter, 51, face charges including endangering the welfare of children and recklessly endangering another person, court records reviewed by Law&Crime show. Shipley has also been charged with persons required to report suspected child abuse.
The charges stem from the investigation into the death of Renesmay Eutsey, to whom Shipley was a grandmother and Umensetter was a family friend. Kourtney Eutsey, 31, and Sarah Shipley, 35 — Renesmay's foster parents — are both charged with first-degree murder in the case.
The child lived with her foster parents at a home in Fayette County, Pennsylvania. On Sept. 3, 2025, Renesmay was reported missing, prompting Pennsylvania State Police to launch a search.
As officers went to search the home for any signs of Renesmay, a small child approached them and "apologized for not telling the truth" about what apparently happened to Renesmay, an affidavit reviewed by Law&Crime says.
"I'm never going to see my baby sister again because she's in heaven," the child told officers, alleging that Eutsey killed Renesmay and then put her body in a tote, per the affidavit.
A sibling claimed to have "overheard" Eutsey talking with another adult — later alleged to be Sarah Shipley — about taking Renesmay to a river "far, far away."
Authorities added that "[The child] stated that the only reason she came out of the room she was in was because she heard the victim screaming and crying and thought she needed help with something." Eutsey and Sarah Shipley were allegedly "yelling at the victim and kicked her in her stomach," the affidavit alleges.
The sibling reportedly told investigators that "she saw the victim in a big, thick, black garbage, then inside of a dark-grey, "light-ish tote, that was broken on the side." She added: "[Renesmay] is dead now. I'm never gonna see her again. I miss her."
Investigators would end up finding the child's body in a black bag inside a tote on the "shore bank" of the Youghiogheny River in Fayette County.
The Fayette County District Attorney's Office announced on Tuesday that prosecutors received the results of Renesmay's autopsy on March 16, "which confirmed that Renesmay died of malnourishment and neglect; additional causes included blunt force trauma to the head, neck, torso, and extremities."
The statement went on: "The primary cause of death is identical to the alleged injuries against a 7-year-old victim who was hospitalized but survived."
Prosecutors allege that cellphone records show Theresa Shipley and Umensetter were caring for Renesmay on "numerous" occasions in the months before the child's death.
"In short, the children in the home were subjected to severe child abuse and neglect over a long period of time," the DA's office said. "These two defendants were present for it and supervised these children during the times they were severely abused; they did nothing to help them."
Theresa Shipley and Umensetter were arrested and arraigned on Tuesday. They are set to return to court for preliminary hearings on April 29.
Kourtney Eutsey is set to go to trial on May 4; Sarah Shipley is scheduled to have a hearing in her case on June 11.