WEST CHESTER >> The sentencing Monday for the mother of 3-year-old Scott “Scotty” McMillan, who died from a 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 victim of the “horrific” abuse.
“Dear Mom,” the letter, read in Chester County Common Pleas Court by First Assistant District Attorney Michael Noone, who led the prosecution of Gary Lee Fellenbaum; his wife, Amber Fellenbaum; and McMillan’s mother, Jillian Tait, began.
“In November 2014, 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 killing, 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,” Noone 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, Mahon sentenced Tait to 42 to 94 years in a state prison. She had initially faced a possible death sentence for first-degree murder, but avoided that when the prosecution allowed her to plead to lesser offenses — third-degree murder, conspiracy to first-degree murder, endangering the welfare of children, simple assault and possession of instruments of crime — in exchange for agreeing to testify against Gary Fellenbaum.
She never did, but her promise was cited as one factor why Gary Fellenbaum pleaded guilty earlier this year to first-degree murder and was sentenced to life in prison plus 10 to 20 years instead of going to trial.
Mahon, who oversaw each defendant’s case, commended the prosecution — led by Noone, Deputy District Attorney Michelle Frei, Assistant District Attorneys Emily Provencher and Tanner Jacobs, and members of the Chester County Detectives — for its handling of the case. It resulted in three convictions, but spared the surviving child (whose name is being withheld by the Digital First Media) from having to testify at Gary Fellenbaum’s trial and relive the abuse that was inflicted by him and his mother.
“He did not have to go through again what he’s already gone through,” Mahon said before handing down his sentence for Tait. “And the jurors (who would have heard the case) did not have to be exposed to as horrific a set of facts as I’ve ever heard as a judge. It is terrifying and it revolts us.”
Gary Fellenbaum, Mahon said, looking at the 33-year-old Tait and echoing the term used by her attorney, Laurence Harmelin of West Chester, “may very well be a sociopath.”
“But I’m not sure what that makes you,” Mahon said. “You’re their mother.”
The killing shocked members of the Chester County community for its savage nature and drew heartbreaking headlines around the world with its accompanying photograph of the red-headed tyke known as “Scotty.” At the time, Chester County District Attorney Tom Hogan called the case “an American horror story.”
There was no agreement by the prosecution and defense as to what Tait’s ultimate sentence would be, that decision being left up to Mahon.
Tait, wearing long pants and a long-sleeved pink sweater with flowers embroidered on the sleeves, and with her light brown hair in a bun atop her head, pleaded with Mahon for leniency but said she had no excuse for her crimes and that she accepted responsibility. She said, however, that Gary Fellenbaum had manipulated her mental health issues and kept her in a virtual “prison in my own house.”
“I wish to God I had my whole life back,” Tait said in a long statement she read from a handwritten letter to Mahon. “If I had never met Gary, then my son Scott would be alive. I am truly repentant. I wish I could take it all back.”
According to authorities, Tait and Fellenbaum subjected the two young victims to severe abuse – hanging them from door frames and torturing them with homemade implements – and Gary Fellenbaum beat them in the face, stomach, arms and legs. Part of the beatings that Tait agreed to occurred included an episode in which Scott McMillan was knocked out of a chair, and then taped into it so he would not fall out again while Fellenbaum continued punching him.
Scott McMillan died of blunt force trauma on Nov. 4, 2014, after suffering days without medical attention for his internal injuries. His lifeless body was found by emergency personnel in the West Caln trailer he and his brother were brought to live in early October, after Tait began dating Gary Fellenbaum, a co-worker at the local Walmart.
On Monday, Mahon also sentenced Amber Fellenbaum, the killer’s estranged wife, who lived in the household and witnessed the brutal beatings but did nothing to prevent them or notify authorities, to a state prison term of 6½ to 16 years, much more then the three years that her attorney, Thomas P. McCabe of West Chester had requested. Amber Fellenbaum cooperated with the police and prosecution from the date of McMillan’s death and was prepared to testify against her husband at trial, McCabe noted
Amber Fellenbaum, 25, of Lancaster County, who was dressed in a black blazer and black pants, pleaded guilty in April to two counts each of endangering the welfare of a child and recklessly endangering another person, each count relating to one of the two young brothers. Mahon’s sentence was for 4½ to nine years for McMillan’s death and two to seven for the beatings suffered by his older brother.
In addressing the judge, Amber Fellenbaum did not attempt to minimize her involvement in the matter. She said, however, that she had been abused by her husband, and that she had taken steps in the months since her arrest to get counseling and begin turning her life towards the Christian faith.
“I fully understand what I did was wrong,” she said, reading from a handwritten letter to the court. “If I only had been more involved with what was going on around me, Scotty would be alive today. I am sorry. I did nothing. I failed as a person. Scotty deserves justice.”
Also speaking at the three-hour proceeding was the man who adopted McMillan’s older brother, who is now 9 years old. His name is being withheld by the Digital First Media to protect the child’s identity. Mahon said he and his wife taking the survivor in was the only “decent thing that has come out of this case.”
“I am not sure which child is more unfortunate,” the boy’s father said — McMillan for having died or his brother for having survived to live with the memory of being beaten and tortured.
“I know you want to be forgiven,” he said, speaking to Tait. “I acknowledge that your life has not been attractive. But life presents us all with challenges that we have to navigate.”
Parents, no matter the hardship, “are responsible for the health and safety of their children,” he said.
Noting the presence of Tait’s mother, father, stepmother and pastor in the courtroom, the boy’s father said she “had so many places you could have gone” to escape whatever abuse she might have suffered at Gary Fellenbaum’s hands.
Instead, “you selfishly participated in the abuse of your own children,” he said.
He also said that today there are times that McMillan’s older brother remembers his mother, “checking his feet” as he hung from the ceiling of the house, or recalling how he and his brother would be confined in a room where they had to hide their bowel movements so as not to be punished for defecating.
“These are the memories that (he) has. His memories are fear and pain, and confusion as to why he wasn’t protected,” the boy’s father said. “Scotty died alone on a floor, and he watched it and he was alone.”
Gary Fellenbaum may have inflicted the blows that killed McMillan, he said, “but ultimately they were your responsibility. You should have protected them” as he vowed he and his wife would.
“I would have died,” rather than let a child be beaten the way McMillan was, he said. “You protect your children.”
To contact staff writer Michael P. Rellahan call 610-696-1544.
