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Elder Abuse Common in California
In a Single Day in March,
There were 327 Reports of Neglect of the State's Dependent Adults
By Jason Massad, TheReporter.Com
May 22, 2005
Fairfield police detectives enter a home on Utah Street in April
where a partially mummified body of a 79-year-old woman was found.
Her son was later arrested on suspicion of elder abuse.
Photo by Rick Roach/Reporter file
In March, police detectives discovered a dark secret inside an innocuous-looking home in one of Fairfield's quiet, working-class
neighborhoods.
Kathleen Wilson, 79, was found dead and partially mummified lying on the kitchen floor of her home, which had devolved into a wasteland strewn with garbage, cat feces and buckets filled with urine.
The elderly woman, who apparently suffered from cancer, was fed by her caretaker son as she lay on the kitchen floor before eventually succumbing to natural causes, law enforcement officials said.
Now, several months after the discovery, the tragedy continues. Wilson's husband, 81-year-old Harry Wilson, considered "severely disabled," has been put in the custody of the county's protective services, while her son Jack Wilson, 58, is being charged with involuntary manslaughter and elder abuse of his mother.
But perhaps the most shocking aspect of the Wilsons' sad saga is this: the neglect that likely produced the squalid and unsafe living conditions is not uncommon in California, according to a recent report released by the County Welfare Directors Association.
The report details 327 calls related to abuse and neglect of the state's elderly and dependent adults that social workers were summoned to in a single day last March.
In the same month that Wilson was found dead on her kitchen floor, elsewhere in the state:
. A 61-year-old man was found by a health care aide lying in his own urine and feces, with broken glass and cigarette butts littering the floor.
. A 19-year-old developmentally disabled boy was kept locked in his room while his parents were spending his government-provided income, a social services worker reported.
. A 79-year-old woman's daughter was pilfering Social Security checks, while the mother, who was recovering from hip surgery, was found by social workers sleeping on a living room floor.
"Those of us in the field refer to the cases of elder and dependent adult abuse as 'the tip of the iceberg,' " a social worker summarized in the report. "It is estimated that only one of 14 incidents of abuse and/or neglect is actually reported."
The agency's report is groundbreaking, said Linda Watts, deputy director for Solano County's services to older and disabled adults. Its findings are one of the first comprehensive efforts to document the amount of elder abuse and neglect that occurs in California, she said.
Interestingly, information has been available only since the late 1990s regarding the number of cases that have been handled statewide.
Watts said she's familiar with the fact that Solano social workers can respond to around five calls a day, but California's total of 327 calls in one day took everyone by surprise.
"The report really kind of blew us away," she said. "We were like, whoa."
In addition to putting the numbers in a context, the report aims to put a "face" on elder abuse. Kathleen Wilson's case fits almost every profile created by the calls compiled in the report.
For instance, about 37 percent of adult-abuse victims were found to be 80 years old or older. Wilson was 79.
Meanwhile, about 63 percent of the victims were female and 64 percent had major medical issues. Some 42 percent of the alleged perpetrators of elderly abuse and neglect are family members.
The statistics create a profile, but elder abuse can be much more far-ranging than the profile suggests, Watts said.
Most commonly, financial abuse and physical abuse are discovered by local social workers. In many cases, an elderly adult might have the title to their house taken by a greedy relative or an infirm adult might be abused or neglected by a caretaker that is overwhelmed by the situation, Watts said.
"Adult abuse is real," she said. "This is not something that people make up. It has a profound impact on people."
Watts said that if any good can come out of the Wilson case it is that people can become more aware that this type of abuse is real.
Wilson's body was discovered after a suspicious neighbor, detecting an odor near the house, called a county elder-abuse hotline, authorities reported.
"Is it horrible? Absolutely. Do I want to see it in our county again. No," she said. "(Since the tragedy), we've had more people ask, 'Does this really go on?' And that's a good thing."
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