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“It’s one of the worst cases I’ve ever seen,” police officer Barbara O’Neal said last November after authorities arrested three occupants of a Garden City home and sent an elderly woman to a hospital.
The three people who went to jail — Georgette, Steven and Georgio Backman — were charged with cruelty to a person 65 and older. O’Neal, who investigates elder-abuse cases for the Garden City Police Department, said at the time that the 82-year-old woman had been found with body sores and open wounds; that flies and maggots were visible where the woman had been sitting for days; and that officers couldn’t find any of the woman’s medication.
The Backmans, police said last week, are still in the Chatham County jail awaiting trial.
Maggie Hinchey DeLeon, who prosecutes cases of elder/disabled adult abuse, exploitation and neglect for the Chatham County District Attorney’s Office, said at least 55 such incidents have been brought to her in the last year and a half. Many of them involve financial exploitation. Many of the alleged perpetrators are members of the victims’ families.
“It’s that baby boomer group that is now being exploited,” DeLeon said. “These are the people who have saved pretty much their entire lives. That’s how they were brought up. At this point now, they’ve saved so much they should be rewarded, but unfortunately we have seen cases where they’re being exploited and abused and neglected.
“It’s the opposite of what they expected for themselves — growing up with grace, and instead it’s the opposite.”
Garden City police have made seven elder/disabled adult-abuse cases in the last year and a half, according to the district attorney’s office. The department has other, similar investigations that are still open.
Police Chief David Lyons said his department takes elder abuse “very seriously” and so do prosecutors and advocates.
Investigating
O’Neal and Lyons have both been certified through the state’s At-Risk Adult Crime Tactics training to investigate such cases. Three months after O’Neal got her certification in 2013, she had her first case.
She said the elder abuse cases are some of the most emotionally draining she’s worked.
“That’s somebody’s mama, somebody’s sister,” O’Neal said Thursday. “The majority of (victims) so far have been women.”
Residents 65 and older make up nearly 12 percent of Garden City’s population, according to Census data. That’s similar to Savannah, where metro police have given more than 40 cases to DeLeon’s office in the last year and a half.
Blatant cases of abuse and neglect might be the most staggering, but oftentimes, financial exploitation is involved.
That can mean conning an elderly person into signing power-of-attorney papers, using his or her income for personal gain or outright theft.
In July, Garden City police arrested a young couple for allegedly stealing cash, electronics, jewelry and other items from an older, married couple after gaining their trust with a promise to fix up their pool. Jeffrey Alan Anderson Jr. and Alexis Sky Burke were charged with felony counts of burglary, theft by taking and threatening/intimidating disabled adults.
It took dogged detective work to make the arrests. The only description of the female suspect originally given to police was that she had “Kirstie Alley eyes,” referring to the actress. Detective Sgt. Lindsey Talley worked the case for a few weeks, checking pawn records and following other leads. She discovered Burke used a stolen debit card online and was able to trace it. She also found that a wedding ring stolen from the elderly couple had been sold to a gold buyer. Another ring that was stolen had been damaged to make it unrecognizable.
Some of the stolen property still hasn’t been recovered.
Lyons said cases take on a different feel when it’s exploitation by family members instead of strangers.
“When it’s living flesh, blood family, that’s pretty hard to swallow,” he said. “And a couple of these have been mother-daughter.”
Making cases
Before joining DA’s Elder Abuse Prosecution unit, DeLeon prosecuted domestic violence cases.
The work, she said, is similar. Perpetrators of both domestic violence and elder/disabled adult abuse use a power-and-control method to commit their crimes. Abusers sometimes isolate their elderly victims. Sometimes they threaten to send them to nursing homes. Sometimes they deny victims access to church or other activities.
“They’re very manipulative,” DeLeon said. “They allow (victims) to think they only exist because the abuser is keeping them alive, so it creates this feeling that they’re indebted to them.”
DeLeon mentioned more than 55 cases in the last year and a half, but said that the number is probably higher: Police are still being trained to use a new statute that makes it easier to make a felony case on financial crimes that would typically be misdemeanors. Of course, there are the blatant ones, too. And sometimes it takes a while before someone tells police.
“There are cases I have had where there are hundreds of thousands of dollars at least, and it just went unnoticed for years,” DeLeon said.
O’Neal said sometimes people on the outside don’t notice at first because family members live with the victim.
“You have families that haven’t worked for a long time living with an elderly relative,” O’Neal said. “They depend on that person’s income to survive rather than getting out and finding a job.”
When a tip comes in, the officer said, she checks “everything.” That means examining for bruises, marks and open sores, looking at living conditions and — if the alleged victim needs them — checking if aids like walking or breathing devices are present. Investigators also check financial records and look for medicine.
“That’s another way they’re abused,” Lyons said. “(Suspects) will either take their medications and use it themselves, or they’ll take the medication and sell it. The result is the patient — the elder — is not getting the benefit of the drugs.”
Garden City police haven’t seen it yet, but they’re also always on the lookout for signs of victims being restrained — tied to beds or chairs.
“They’ll give you the excuse that grandma’s got Alzheimer’s and she’ll wander away,” Lyons said. “You can’t tie grandma to the bed.”
Occasionally, victims or suspected victims have trouble communicating with investigators or prosecutors. Sometimes, O’Neal said, people suffering from dementia may do things like claim they’re not being fed when, in fact, they forgot they ate. Investigators have to double-check everything. That can affect interviews when preparing prosecution, too, DeLeon said. Victims can’t always cooperate.
That’s where good evidence comes into play.
“Sometimes it is such a horrible case that I don’t need a victim statement — the evidence is going to speak for itself,” DeLeon said.
Even in the serious cases, DeLeon said, victims don’t necessarily want to pursue charges.
Prosecutors, though, are trying to send a message.
“Sometimes (victims) just want that person to say, ‘I’m sorry,’” DeLeon said. “We have to prevent this person from doing that again, and a simple ‘I’m sorry’ is not going to prevent that type of behavior.”
Scams and outreach
People will sometimes try to take advantage of the elderly or disabled through scams. They’re viewed as easy, vulnerable targets, O’Neal said.
Some of those tricks include a scam artist calling someone at home to inform them they’ve won something but need to fork over financial information to claim the prize. Others involve people asking for down payments on contract work and never returning.
Judy Roundtree, program director at the Garden City Senior Center, said two of her regulars fielded scam attempts on Thursday.
One caller pretended to be a police officer and asked a woman for credit card information to bail her son — who, it turned out, was sitting at home with his family — out of jail. Another woman had someone calling and leaving her harassing voice mails, looking for money.
Roundtree said another two of the center’s patrons had reported a man at a grocery store sticking a nail into their car tires. He apparently walked up to them, pretending to have noticed they had run over nails, and then told them he’d fix the tire if they followed him.
“Thank goodness neither of them fell for it,” Roundtree said.
About 40 seniors use the center each day, and they tend to look out for one another. They notice when someone’s not present or acting strangely.
“I’m more worried about the ones who don’t go to senior centers,” Roundtree said.
The Backmans lived just down the road from the center, she said, but staff there had no idea an elderly woman was in the home.
She said anyone who suspects they’ve been the victim of a scam should tell authorities immediately. There’s no reason to be embarrassed or feel like a burden.
“Don’t feel bad about it,” Roundtree said. “Let’s just correct it.”
GET HELP
If you suspect elderly/disabled adult abuse, call police at 911, CrimeStoppers at 912-234-2020 or adult Adult Protective Services at 888-774-0152.