Eutsey attorney to file for change of venue, gag order on DA
Dunbar woman facing trial in 9-year-old\\\'s death
The attorney for one of the Dunbar women accused of killing a 9-year-old girl in September 2025 said in court Friday that she planned to file motions asking for a change in venue and to place a gag order on online communications from District Attorney Mike Aubele.
Kourtney Eutsey, 32, is charged along with Sarah Shipley, 36, in the death of Renesmay Eutsey, who had been one of several children in their care.
The two originally reported Renesmay Eutsey missing early on the morning of Sept. 3, 2025. After police noticed inconsistencies in their stories, they began investigating the death as suspicious, witnesses testified in earlier hearings.
Kourtney Eutsey later drove police to the site on the Youghiogheny River where she had placed Renesmay Eutsey’s body in a garbage bag, weighed down by rocks, troopers said at Kourtney Eutsey’s preliminary hearing.
Medical personnel who testified at an earlier hearing said Renesmay had shown evidence of malnutrition and other signs of neglect, as had a 6-year-old boy and 11-year-old girl at the home.
At a pretrial motions hearing Friday, Eutsey’s attorney, Phyllis Jin, argued the extensive pretrial publicity in the case had impacted the chance at a fair trial in Fayette County.
She also asked Judge Linda Cordaro to impose a gag order on District Attorney Mike Aubele, which she said would include posts on the official district attorney Facebook page.
“I understand the press has an absolute right to report, and there’s been a tremendous amount of coverage,” Jin said after Friday’s hearing. “My argument is that the district attorney’s office constantly posts on Facebook, which then provokes the public to make comments — and some very derogatory, negative comments — and these are the people that will be potential jurors in the jury pool.”
Jin said she planned to file the motions Friday. Aubele will have 14 days to file a response.
After Friday’s hearing, Aubele said he believed Fayette County is the appropriate venue for the case.
“We go through voir dire here with all the jurors to determine whether or not they can be fair and impartial, and I think that that process can be had here,” he said.
Aubele also said he stands behind what his office posts on social media, noting that they are careful to say every defendant is presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
“The public is allowed to get information, wants to know what we’re doing, how we’re doing it, and that’s what we’ve done,” he said.
Jin’s motions came at the end of a hearing on several other defense motions.
Jin sought to have the charges dismissed, arguing Aubele had not been able to submit facts strong enough on their face to prove a claim.
She also sought to strike a notice of aggravating circumstances Aubele had filed, as well as quash the corresponding notice of intention to seek the death penalty.
On Friday, Aubele called several witnesses, including Jennifer Hammers, a forensic pathologist who had conducted the autopsy on Renesmay.
Hammers concluded she had died of malnourishment, neglect and untreated medical conditions, with blunt force trauma as a contributing factor.
She found numerous signs of neglect, including ulcers on her body, a rib fracture, a severe injury in her armpit area and a number of contusions.
“Unless we have something on video, we’re never going to know exact circumstances what happened,” Aubele said after the hearing. “We can only look at medical evidence, we can only look at forensic evidence, and we’re alleging that this was a pattern of abuse over a long period of time.”
Cordaro gave Jin 30 days to file a brief in support of her argument, after which Aubele would have 20 days to file a response.
Shipley and Kourtney Eutsey are each charged with homicide, aggravated assault, abuse of a corpse, concealing the death of a child, endangering the welfare of children, corruption of minors and tampering with evidence.
Both remain in custody awaiting trial — Kourtney Eutsey in Washington County jail, and Sarah Shipley in Fayette.