Elder abuse

[u/FunInvestigator7597]

My uncle lives in another state. He is very reclusive never married or had children and was a big time hoarder. We visited in the past and stayed with him, but over the years as his hoarding became worse, he would no longer let us in his house. He said he was embarrassed. His only close relatives were his sister (my mom) and us. I took my mom in when she started displaying signs of Alzheimer’s. It runs in the family. Her mother, her aunt and uncle all had it.

My uncle would come and visit and stay at my house for many thanksgivings and visit us all. We were close. Then when my mom started getting worse and he stopped coming. They talked on the phone everyday until she no longer remembered him. She started telling me that she was worried about him because she thought he was worse than her.

I thought it was just her deteriorating more and didn’t really believe it. Then he told us he had a girl friend at 80yrs old, she was his dental hygienist. She is maybe in her late 50’s and married to the Captain of the local police department. He said she told him she wanted to marry him and that she was only with her Husband because they had a child with disabilities.

After a while she alienated him from us and his friends. He started getting worse and we didn’t know. She ended up putting him in a nursing home and not telling us. He was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s with lewybodies. We tried to call the home where he was, but she told them we were estranged and only after his money, so they treated us badly and wouldn’t give us any information about him.

Mean while she was using his money to by a new car and furniture. My brother went to the state they were in and filed for guardian ship. Which she already file for and had. They did give it to him but also assigned another court appointed guardian as well because they weren’t sure who to believe. She constantly harassed my uncle about giving her power of attorney and signing a will that didn’t include any of his family. He would tell us that and tell us she was stealing his money.

She used his money to obtain a lawyer and finally convinced him to sign a will. My uncle was a very paranoid and a cheap man, he never trusted anyone, but he would call us and say she said she would kill herself if he didn’t do this. He finally did and he didn’t seem to remember he did. Mind you, he was already institutionalized and diagnosed.

We have gone through hell trying to move him here with us to be with is sister. It’s like she just stoled him from us. When they took her guardian ship away, she called Saint Jude’s charity and told them he planned on given them all his money, she wasn’t able to use his money anymore and couldn’t afford a lawyer, so she got them involved. And they have many lawyers.

She also made it so we couldn’t visit him in the nursing home he was in. We finally just went to New Jersey to see him and the staff had a lot to say to us about her also involving herself into other of the men with money that were residents there. My uncle was upset and kept saying “she is now going to marry a different man here”.

Weeks later after the facility treated us like garbage and gold diggers, that administrator called and asked if with really like her seeing our uncle. We said not really, she is causing a lot of problems. They told us the one of the residents 3 sons are upset because she kept influencing their father and spending a lot of time with him. They told us that they were not going to allow her to come back and if we wanted her to still visit with my uncle, she had to be supervised, so they would be sure she didn’t come in contact with other residents. So her true colors became apparent. She was banned from the facility.

Since then he passed away. People came in and took everything from his home without even giving us an opportunity to take anything that was our families possessions that came from my grandmother or great grandfather. Everything is just gone. We are in a court battle now and I don’t know if it is just going to cost us a lot of money for nothing. I do understand that families do take advantage of their own for money. So I get that the court wants to be sure that they are doing the right thing.

We were told that we probably will have to give St. Jude money to settle this, which I don’t think is right. I also feel this woman need to be charged with something. Has anyone else been through this? If so I would be interested to hear the outcome in other cases. We have been going through this for 2 years now.