Wednesday, July 1, 2009

People are preying on elderly residents

[There is] an individual, or group of individuals, living in our community who make a living from taking advantage of your elderly loved ones. From here on out we will refer to these individuals as the dark side. ... These people pose as housekeepers, caretakers or other domestic help. They appear to be nice and helpful, and go out of their way to be of service to older persons. ...

The elderly person is befriended, and they are hired to clean, run errands, take the person to doctor appointments or pet sit. The dark side look for elderly who live alone and have little or no outside family involvement. Slowly, [they] convince the elderly that they cannot function properly without them, and start helping with their finances to learn their financial status. From there, it's making deposits to the elderly person's bank or helping them write checks, often to themselves, being careful to make the checks out to cash rather than use their own name. ... Once the dark side has gained the trust of the elderly, the deterioration of the elderly person's health begins.

The elderly person now depends on the dark side people to clean for them, prepare their meals and help with errands, all the while charging the elderly a fee to do so. ... Friends, relatives and neighbors will be discouraged and kept away as much as possible by intercepting calls, or answering the door and making excuses why the elderly person cannot be seen at the time. ...

Slowly the elderly person is made to become depressed and their nourishment is not given full attention. Often they are only checked in on two or three days a week. At this point these individuals convince the elderly that they could better help with banking and financial matters if they were made power of attorney. From there it is all downhill. The dark side will have control of their bank account, and will then often make an appointment with an attorney ... and have themselves put in a new will. They convert any insurance policies by placing the dark side as the new beneficiary. ...

At this point the elderly person is effectively "warehoused" where the dark side waits for their passing, from dehydration, malnutrition, stroke etc., so they may collect all of this person's assets. ... One untreated urinary tract infection over time can cause the elderly person to become septic and stroke and could easily result in death. ...

Has this happened to your friend or family member? Please, if you have knowledge of any of this, please contact martmo30442@gmail.com. These people need to be stopped.

Martha Moore

Big Pine Key

Seeking information on brother's death

This may or may not be inappropriate at this time, however, I must write to satisfy my curiosity about my brother's death on your highway several years ago. His name was Jeffrey Wyatt Downer, and yes, he did have may aliases at the time of his horrific death. Jeff wasn't a well-liked man due to several run-ins with law enforcement and others he had trouble communicating with. He was at times, some would say, even obnoxious. But still we were born to the same parents, so we were family.

Was he going home? And, where was home? I last saw my brother alive in autumn of 1984. He had shown up at my doorstep unannounced with a duffle bag of pot.

What I want to know is, can I have newspapers of that incident and any eyewitness reports from the law enforcement who worked the scene that night on Marathon Key. [Can anyone] come forward with any explanation why Jeff was walking, drunk, stoned and oblivious to the world all alone on a major highway.

According to the only report I was given was that he was hit by two cars -- one a brown Mercedes that left the scene -- and another that stopped to help, but was too late.

What happened to the brown Mercedes? How hard could that have been back then to find?

These are questions that have haunted me since that year he died unnecessarily.

My thanks to the EMS and all the doctors who did try to save my brother. And to the folks who stopped to report the accident.

Nola (Downer) Ruppard

Valdese, N.C.