Ultimate Criminal Neglect- "The Chair Lady"

KANSAS CITY -- A suburban Kansas City woman was left sitting in a vinyl recliner for so long that her skin had fused to the chair and she had to be pried out to be taken to a hospital after suffering an apparent stroke, authorities said.

Carol F. Brown's adult son told a state official he had left his 74-year-old mother in the chair for five days without helping her get up to use the bathroom or bathe because he was honoring her wishes to die in her Independence home, according to court documents that described the woman as a "rotting corpse that was still breathing." Brown later died.

Brown's son, James Owens, told an official with the Missouri Division of Senior and Disability Services that his mother had been in the chair since Oct. 23 and that he was honoring her wishes to be left to die, the documents said.

Owens, who the documents said had started the application process to gain state aid to be his mother's caretaker, said he did give the woman tomato and chicken noodle soup.

I watched this develop and hoped it was dramatized.  It turns out it only gets worse.  This poor woman died, but the misfortune is how she lived until death rescued her from the filth and pain that had to be tormenting her.  Maggots were eating at open wounds, and the smell of her living but rotting body was brutal. The only addition has been that her son is now charged with forgery for cashing her Social Security check.

It's just upsetting beyond words.  I've seen elderly people come into nursing homes from such situations, and neglect so pitiful that it makes your heart hurt.  But this is hands down the worst neglect article I've read in years, and all I can do is feel sad for the woman who lived in agony and then died knowing her child wasn't going to help her.  There's just too much wrong here to even begin.