SALT LAKE CITY — A woman has been charged in the abuse and neglect that eventually killed her 77-year-old mom, Utah officials said.
On March 10, police responded to the Intermountain Medical Center in Murray after getting reports of elder abuse, according to a September 9 news release by the Salt Lake County District Attorney’s Office.
The mom’s twin sister had gone to visit her sister, who had dementia and was nonverbal, officials said.
When she arrived at the home, she found her sister covered in feces, officials said.
The woman’s daughter, later identified as Lori Meers, had been a caretaker for her mom for “a long time,” prosecutors said.
In the past, Meers had told her aunt that she wanted to put her mom in a long-term care facility but never went through with it, officials said.
When the woman went to the house, she found her sister downstairs on the floor with a sheet over her lower body that was “ice cold to the touch,” officials said.
Meers told her aunt her mother hadn’t eaten in four days and admitted to not having reached out to anyone for help, officials said.
When paramedics arrived, the woman “cried out in pain” as they tried to move her, officials said.
Officers noted a strong smell of urine in the home, dirty toilet water, grime on the shower walls and the carpet covered in a “thick film of dirt,” according to the charging documents.
She was covered in bed sores and the hospital medical staff determined she was hypothermic, the documents said.
Nine days after being taken to the hospital, the woman died from septic shock due to acute pancreatitis, the release said.
Meers, 53, was charged with manslaughter and aggravated abuse of a vulnerable adult, prosecutors said.
By PALOMA CHAVEZ/McClatchy News
Paloma Chavez is a reporter covering real-time news on the West Coast. She has a degree in journalism from the University of Southern California.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1bKKdtkelw
