Gruesome details have emerged about the death of 3-year-old Scott McMillan. He was found unresponsive in his family’s trailer, covered in cuts, bruises and puncture wounds. McMillian’s mother Jillian Tait, her boyfriend Gary Fellenbaum and his wife Amber Fellenbaum were arrested in connection with the death. Jillian and Gary were charged with murdering McMillian and Amber was charged with child endangerment.
“Little Scotty McMillan is dead. Over a three day period … he was systematically tortured and beaten to death. He was punched in the face and in the stomach. He was scourged with a homemade whip. He was lashed with a metal rod. He was tied to a chair and beaten. He was tied upside down by his feet and beaten. His head was smashed through a wall,” said Chester County District Attorney Tom Hogan.
Authorities said they’d never seen a child abuse murder like this.The brutal torture and murder of Scott McMillan began when he refused to eat his breakfast.
Gary and Jillian confessed to the murder during police questioning. They beat the boy to death using a homemade whip, a curtain rod, and an aluminum strip. Scott was hit with both sharp and blunt objects, taped to a chair with electrical tape and beaten, hung up by his feet and beaten, which led to his death.
Scott’s life was a short and violent one, according to his mother. Scott and his 6-year-old brother, who is now safely in the custody of a family member, were routinely beaten with closed fists. On one occasion, Gary tied the boys up by their feet and beat them while Jillian and his wife Amber laughed as they watched.
Hogan announced that the district attorney’s office wanted the death penalty for Jillian and Gary.
At the sentencing for the mother of 3-year-old Scott “Scotty” McMillan, who died from the brutal series of beatings and torture that he shared alongside his older brother at the hands of her boyfriend, featured a letter written by the surviving children.
“Dear Mom,” the letter, read. “You Gary and Amber were trapped in a house of torture,” wrote the boy, who now lives with his adoptive parents, relatives who took the older son in after the murder, to Tait, who gave birth to him while she worked at a senior home in West Chester. “The torture was you guys. The victims were me and Scotty. Scotty got killed. I got beaten.
“You are the worst mother I’ve ever known,” He continued to read, as Tait stood listening, weeping openly in Judge William P. Mahon’s courtroom. “You just watched us get hurt. I wish you never met Gary. He is really evil. He nearly killed me. You are the reason Scotty got killed.
“I thought parents were supposed to protect us,” the letter concluded, “Now you are in jail for your time out.”
As punishment for watching her boyfriend beat her young sons regularly and torture them for petty misdoings, helping him at times and never raising a hand to stop the abuse, Judge Mahon sentenced Tait to 42 to 94 years in a state prison.
Fellenbaum agreed to a negotiated plea and was sentenced to life in prison plus 10 to 20 years.
