Evelyn, 9, Survived the Home Birth That Killed Her Twin Sister Ginnifer in an Oregon Faith-Healing Church. A Couple Who Left That Church Is Raising Her.

According to The Oregonian, a 9-year-old girl named Evelyn is being raised by a couple who left the Followers of Christ, the Oregon City faith-healing church where her twin sister, Ginnifer, died after a home birth in 2017. In October 2026, Evelyn’s birth parents filed a motion that would have ended that couple’s guardianship. In November, they withdrew it.

The newspaper reported the story with ProPublica, drawing on court records, police reports and 911 audio. What follows is a dated look at how a single day in March 2017 led to the current arrangement.

March 5, 2017: Twin Girls Born Eight Weeks Early at Home

Ginnifer and Evelyn Mitchell were born on March 5, 2017, to Sarah and Travis Mitchell, about eight weeks before their due date, the Oregonian reported. Ginnifer weighed about three and a half pounds. She died about four hours after birth, at 7 p.m., in her father’s arms.

Evelyn, who weighed under four pounds, survived. After police became involved, she was taken to a hospital, where she spent 11 days in the neonatal intensive care unit.

The Mitchells belonged to the Followers of Christ, a church that, according to the Clackamas County District Attorney’s Office, rejects professional medical care and relies on prayer and faith healing. The Oregonian reported that the church once counted 1,500 to 2,000 members and that 18 children died in the group between 1989 and 1999.

March 2017 to July 2018: A Court Hearing, Then Guilty Pleas

On March 16, 2017, a circuit court hearing decided where Evelyn would stay while the investigation continued. Her grandfather had asked Marshall Phillips, who had left the church, to take her in. The Mitchells’ lawyers argued that she should go home. Prosecutors and child welfare officials opposed that, and Evelyn stayed with the Phillipses.

At that hearing, a prosecutor said the parents had let the child’s twin die in their arms without making any effort to seek medical care, as quoted by the Oregonian. Marshall Phillips told the court he would make sure Evelyn received medical care.

On July 9, 2018, Travis and Sarah Mitchell pleaded guilty to criminally negligent homicide and criminal mistreatment, according to a Clackamas County District Attorney release. Each agreed to serve 80 months in prison. Each also signed a written statement saying they should have sought adequate medical care for their children, and the couple agreed to have their letters posted prominently inside the church.

The same release said the Mitchells were the first parents in such a case in the county to plead guilty and accept criminal responsibility. It described the case as the office’s fifth prosecution of its kind in nine years.

Why Oregon Prosecutors Could Bring the Case

Oregon law changed years before Ginnifer’s birth. In 1999, lawmakers removed a spiritual-treatment defense for second-degree manslaughter and criminal mistreatment, according to a staff summary of the 2011 bill that finished the job.

That bill, House Bill 2721, removed reliance on spiritual treatment as a defense to certain crimes when the victim is under 18. The House Judiciary Committee passed it 10-0, and the bill carried an emergency clause, so it took effect on passage as Chapter 291 of the 2011 session laws.

The Oregonian reported that an estimated 150 to 200 people left the church starting in 2018, and that a former member told detectives in 2023 that some younger parents were quietly taking their children to doctors.

2018 to 2026: A Permanent Guardianship and a New Life

By October 2018, the state had made the Phillipses’ guardianship of Evelyn permanent, the Oregonian reported. Marshall Phillips, born in 1975, was raised in the Followers of Christ. He left after his son Nick developed a serious case of Type 1 diabetes in the summer of 2013 and he took the boy to a Portland hospital. His wife, Jennifer, married him at 17 and did not see a doctor until her mid-40s.

Evelyn now lives with them and the couple are her permanent legal guardians, while the Mitchells see her on a schedule of visits. The Oregonian reported that she knows why her birth parents went to prison and that the Mitchells see her about twice a month.

On her ninth birthday, March 5, 2026, Evelyn visited her sister’s grave and told her she misses her. In June 2026, she was baptized.

October to November 2026: A Motion Filed, Then Withdrawn

In October 2026, about four months after Evelyn’s baptism, the Mitchells filed a motion effectively seeking to end the Phillipses’ permanent guardianship, the paper reported. The filing acknowledged that Evelyn opposed the move.

The Mitchells’ lawyer described them to the newspaper as utterly sincere, decent and caring human beings. The couple also criticized the Phillipses for letting Evelyn take part in the reporting, according to the Oregonian.

In November, the Mitchells withdrew the motion, which means the guardianship stays exactly as it was. They are now seeking expanded visitation, and the Oregonian noted that the case remains the subject of legal proceedings.

Prosecutions of church members have continued. In September 2025, two Oregon City parents who belong to the church pleaded guilty to first-degree criminal mistreatment after their newborn son died, and the Clackamas County District Attorney’s Office called it the sixth prosecution of church members in the county since 2008. District Attorney John Wentworth said then that Oregon law is extremely clear and that parents are required to protect their children.

Get stories like this by email. Sign up for The Parent Diaries Letter.

This article was produced with AI assistance and edited for accuracy against the sources linked above.

Image: Gary Halvorson, Oregon State Archives – CC BY 4.0/Wikimedia Commons