The Worst Elder Abuse Crimes

Two multiple sclerosis patients in the Greeley, Colorado area recently accused their caregivers of cheating them out of thousands of dollars.

The cases were unrelated, but surfaced within days of each other this past September.

Denverpost.com reports that Rhonda Cheri Aab, 38, (pictured left) allegedly siphoned checks off the Kersey, Colorado MS patient she had been taking care of for two years. She now faces 57 counts of forgery and one count of theft from an at-risk adult, both of which are felonies.

Meanwhile, Kathy Jo Villanueva, 37, (pictured right) and Angel Rojas, 18, apparently forced an MS sufferer to sign checks by threatening to stop looking after her. They have been charged with extortion, theft from an at-risk adult, and contributing to the delinquency of a minor.

Studies show that Texas has some of the worst assisted-living facility care in the country.

Gina Perez, a resident of Bexar County, saw the evidence first-hand when she found her 89-year-old grandmother bruised from head to toe after a one-day stay at San Pedro Manor in San Antonio.

"I found her on the floor, her hand all twisted up and I yelled and said how long has she been on the floor and all they did was shrug their shoulders," Perez told KSAT reporter Brian Mylar. "It hurts, because she trusted me, she trusted me to take care of her," she said.

When prominent Mid-Michigan rheumatologist Dr. Dorothy Mulkey, 73, said she wanted to cash in an IRA worth $898,000 to buy a home in California, one of her employees was incredulous.

"And she said, 'Are you sure? Do you understand you're losing $365,000?'" Genesee County Sheriff Robert recalled, according to ABC12 local news in Michigan. "[S]he appeared incoherent, almost zombie-like."

Authorities later came to believe Mulkey had been drugged by her 30-year-old caregiver, Andrea Neil, who swindled the physician out of as much as $3 million.

Neil, who had worked as an office assistant in Mulkeys private practice, was paid $1,500 a week to care for the doctor in her Flushing, Michigan home after her retirement.

Police found $78,000 worth of Mulkeys precious metals and coins in Neils home.

Neil was charged with embezzlement and obtaining money under false pretenses.

"Once they got the victim away from this defendant, she became coherent and she became alert and she knew what was going on," said Genesee County Prosecutor David Leyton.

In late October, April Johnson of Blue Bayou, Louisiana was arrested in a case of elder abuse after authorities found a 69-year-old woman in a wooden shed attached to her home.

The victim had suffered a broken hip and femur, and was lying in urine and filth, WAFB Louisiana reported.

Police believed her to be in life-threatening condition. Johnson, 30, reportedly told police it wasnt her responsibility to care for the woman.

The day after her husbands funeral in 2007, Elmore Kittowers widow received a phone call. It was the mother of a nursing home employee, who claimed that her husband had been beaten to death.

Sure enough, when Kittowers body was exhumed, an autopsy revealed that the man had been physically mistreated for months and that blunt force trauma had played a part in his demise.

In April of 2010, Cesar Ulloa, an employee of an upscale Los Angeles assisted-living facility, was found guilty of torture and elder abuse for crimes against Mr. Kittower and others.

Witnesses alleged that Ulloa, 21, tormented patients who suffered from dementia and other debilitating conditions. He was also accused of body-slamming a 78-year-old woman and forcing patients to fight.

"He attacked the most vulnerable people, and he laughed while doing it. This was sport for him," Deputy District Attorney Robin Allen with the Elder Abuse Unit told The Associated Press.

In Idaho in 2009, Canyon County police came upon a grisly scene: 92-year-old Verda Nicks had been left to die in her own filth.

"She had open sores in her back, her spine was exposed, and there were maggots in the wounds," Canyon County Prosecutor John Bujak said, according to The Idaho Statesman.

Nicks died six weeks after she was discovered.

Her 55-year-old twin sons, Danny and David Nicks, had been living in a trailer on their mothers property and using her Social Security checks to support themselves. The brothers said that their mother had not taken a shower in a year.

In 2007, funeral home employees in Utica, New York were shocked by the condition of Edith Auchmoodys body. They contacted the police, and the victims son, David Auchmoody, was charged with 2nd degree manslaughter, criminally negligent homicide and endangering the welfare of a vulnerable elderly person.

"She was basically emaciated," Assistant District Attorney Kurt Hameline told WKTV. "Her body was covered with bedsores, she had osteo myolitis. She had infections in her bones...her bones were basically rotting away. She wasn't able to move and...this is what we're saying, that he was reckless in that he either did not provide that care himself or seek someone who could."

When police were called to the house of a Muskegon, Mich. resident in November of 2008, what they found was a little hard to stomach. The stench was so foul that it drove firefighters and EMTs outside to vomit.

After fighting their way through piles of trash and debris to get inside, authorities discovered an 85-year-old woman covered in her own filth. Mark Anderson, her 50-year-old son and live-in-caretaker, said she had not moved from her couch in three weeks.

"Nobody should have been left in those conditions, nobody," said Chief Tony Kleibecker of the Muskegon Police Department. "I wouldn't leave an animal in those conditions, let alone a human being, let alone your mom."

The house was condemned, and the victim was expected to survive. Anderson was charged with elder abuse.