Elder Abuse: Bad Things Happen to Old People

 

by Pa Rock

Old Citizen Journalist

Yesterday there was a story on the internet about a married couple in Overland Park, Kansas, who are headed into court to face charges of stealing from a dead person.   They had apparently been living with the woman's father who passed away in 2016, but when he died the couple chose not to report the death because that would have stopped his pension and social security benefits, money which they continued to bank and spend. The deception was discovered in 2022 after the pair had spent over $200,000 of money that had been paid into the checking account of the deceased old man.

During those six years that they drew and spent his retirement benefits, they left the old codger's corpse in his bed where it eventually mummified.  

Perhaps that would be more accurately described as abuse of a corpse rather than of an old man, but if he was treated that egregiously by his deadbeat relatives after death, his quality of life toward the end probably left something to be desired.

That story put me in mind of an episode of the television show, "Shameless," the American version, where the Gallagher family had been living with an elderly aunt in a big house that she owned on Chicago's south side, and when she died, they buried her in the yard in order to keep residing in her house and drawing her benefits.

it also reminded me of an actual child abuse case that I worked as an investigator many years ago.  In the process of sorting through what was happening with the family, we quickly discovered a quite elderly great-grandmother who was being held captive - and had been for several years - by her children and grandchildren who were cashing her social security check as soon as it arrived every month.  She was "rescued" by the state, and people went to jail.

People become vulnerable as they age, and bad things happen to vulnerable people.   Check on your elderly neighbors, especially during bad weather.  Make sure they have heat, food, water, and a way to contact others.  Be on the lookout for mistreatment, and report concerns to law enforcement or social service agencies.

We are all getting older by the day, which means that elder abuse is a problem that could eventually affect us all.  Let's treat it with the attention and seriousness that it deserves.