Starvation and Dehydration ;Florida Please Get Tough On Elder Abuse! They Deserve Better..

By Missy Diaz South Florida Sun-Sentinel

WEST PALM BEACH - Living in a hot room and being deprived of fluids -- not Alzheimer's disease -- killed 89-year-old Elly Lorey, a geriatric psychiatrist testified Wednesday at the first-degree murder and elder-abuse trial of Lorey's caregivers, her daughter and son-in-law Kerstin and Toby Fenn.

According to the state's case, Lorey lived like a prisoner in the master bedroom of the Woodchuck Court home in the Cimarron neighborhood, west of Boca Raton. While her daughter and son-in-law went to work, Lorey passed the days in the barren, isolated, locked room where the air conditioning vent had been nailed closed with a pizza box top.

Lorey's eating and smearing feces, and her clawing at the walls and eating the drywall were indicative of dementia and Alzheimer's disease, Rabins testified. But they probably were exacerbated by the anxiety she likely felt by the dearth of human contact, he said.

When Lorey died in September 2005 she weighed 80 pounds. The Palm Beach County Medical Examiner determined the cause of her death was starvation and dehydration.

Abridged for EA read it all here =>>Sun Sentinel

Missy Diaz can be reached at mdiaz@SunSentinel.com or 561-228-5505.

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These stories of elder abuse break my heart , the first reaction is always disbelief, How could a son or a daughter allow this to happen ? This is similar to what happened in my family with the exception that in my case where caring and watchful family members were able intervene in time at an elevated cost in legal fees in the hundred's of thousands of dollars , and the agencies who were in place to protect the elders, when notified in time to be able to make a difference the Florida DCF, just passed the ball to the civil courts.

This seems to be the the Modus Operandis, just pass the ball..and this, is the end result.