Elder abuse discovered after person died?

Pam and Ladylee, the issue of the 20 years of financial abuse is a point I tried to highlight. The OP states that they knew of the abuse for 20 years, but the title of her post states that the abuse was discovered after the MIL's death.

It was that major inconsistency that I wanted to highlight, since it goes to credibility of the poster's story and failure to act.

It sounds like she knew he was taking advantage and the enmeshment of the relationship provided the answer. You all stood by and watching this happen. She allowed him to steal from her with her permission.
Done deal. Close the book, this story has ended.

Tacy and CWillie, I've noticed this site has been having problems today and yesterday. Log-in time hasn't changed, but it takes about 6x as long for each different post to load.

There's also been a glitch in the number of helpful posts shown on the stat section. Either Monday night or Tues., morning, the number dropped by 20 posts. It rose again this morning, even though there weren't that many posts to account for the change.

I haven't had any virus notices, but I'm going to run a full scan as soon as I log off. I do recall getting a notice that the security certificate wasn't up to date or consistent with the site. I logged off, logged on again but didn't get the notice.

Has anyone notified the Admins of the virus pop-up warnings?

I think maybe we should. I'm doing so now.

https://www.agingcare.com/contactus.aspx

As to this post being real, I never really thought it was; that's why I pointed out so many issues.

If you were afraid to rock the boat when she was alive, you might as well continue to not rock it and let the BIL have the money.

I've seen the virus threat pop up in the past, but not recently, gosh, I hope it's alright!

Interesting Tacy, Firefox also blocked the site this a.m. saying it was unsecure, I figured it was just a glitch.

Good question.. but now I am worried about the site safety! My virus scan is OK?

At the risk of making myself unpoplular I don;t know why people thought MIL died 20 years ago.. Jennifer says she was visiting 3 years ago. And if you are wondering how she got the info on the body on the drive, or the bank stuff.. welcome to any small town in America! Nasty gossip spreads faster than a rash! A body in the drive where I live would be news all over in 15 minutes! Espicially once the cops showed up! And people in the bank would talk too! (so much for privacy laws... juicy gossip overrules that!)
As far as the fraud.. get bank statements,, financial records and the police report about the condition of the house. It is too bad you didn't do something sooner, or report it earlier.. but what is done is done now. I am guessing he had POA or guardianship.. so you are probably out of luck. Maybe her Dr noticed something??

I am confused. If you knew this abuse was going on for 20 years, why didn't you take your mother to live with you?

Well, where I come from you can be charged with "committing an indignity to a body". I'm not sure if putting her in the driveway would qualify.
Beyond that you would need to bring forward concrete evidence of an offence before anyone would be interested in getting involved. You have said yourself, she wanted to keep the peace so she was willing to allow things to be the way they were.

Thank you for the responses. To clarify, she died a couple weeks ago. We do not live in her town so a neighbor told us of her body in the driveway (I confirmed it with the police) and the person who drove him to the bank (he has no license because of two DUIs) told us of the lock box. There is no money left in her estate and her home will probably have to be condemned so that is not my motive. I would like to see my BIL face some charges. At a minimum, he'll have to get a full time job. If any of you have had dysfunctional family relationships, you'll understand that I was truly forbidden to intervene. I was told by my MIL I had to keep peace between my BIL and my husband (He has never taken a dime from his parents. We have worked hard to do well on our own.) when my husband confronted my BIL a few times. I hope readers will learn from my mistake and call social services no matter what.

Jennifer, there is nothing you can do 20 years later. There was a LOT you could have done way back in the 1990's. Live with it.

I would see an an attorney in that county and get legal advice and get assistance. See if there is a way to file a case on the Estate of the deceased. Each state has rules on that process.

You can consult with law enforcement and/or the prosecutor's office and file a report.

Hire your own private investigator to gather facts.

Beware of time limitations on most things.

"Seriously, there are some posts that are so incredible, so contradictory and so slippery on factual issues that I find it difficult to believe that someone is actually serious, especially about addressing a fraud issue after it's been in process for 20 years. Sometimes these situations are too incredible to believe, and sometimes the potential heirs just have their hands out. "

AMEN

Your post raises a number of issues, including intent.

1. How do you know that your MIL's body was placed on the driveway? How do you know BIL had a lockbox drilled open on the date of her death? Did a bank officer tell you this? Were you there to witness either of these events?

2. The bank "knew he was been stealing from her for years"? Did someone at the bank tell you this? What proof do you have that they "knew"? And why didn't the bank allegedly do something about this felony?

3. You wrote that the police terminated an investigation because there is no longer a victim. If $300K was stolen, there is a victim(s): your MIL's estate. And that's financial abuse as well as fraud, based on your own description.

4. "There was probably a lot of cash in there." "Probably"? How would you be able to guess that?

5. "We knew he was stealing from her over the past 20 years but she wouldn't let us intervene" Did you need her permission to intervene and protect her as well as her assets? I sure hope you don't have children; that's a hell of a flimsy attitude to have, not intervening in a crime in process because you don't have permission.

6. Your post title states "Elder Abuse Discovered After Person Died?" So she died 20 years ago, since you claim that the abuse was discovered post death but you also state that you knew he had been stealing for 20 years? So you've waited 20 years to ask this question, or did you know for 20 years while she was living that he was stealing? If the latter, it's contradictory to the title of your post.

Or was it that you've known for 20 years he had been stealing but didn't intervene because you weren't allowed to? Either way, your assertions are contradictory and don't support a belief in factual knowledge as it existed.

7. You haven't been to the MIL's house in 3 years. This speaks volumes to your alleged concern now.

8. "Again, I wasn't permitted to call social services because she would have been embarrassed in her small town." You "weren't permitted"? And your perception of her possible embarrassment was that this was more important than remediation of a filthy house?

9. You're upset with yourself. You ought to be, and should be embarrassed that you're attempting to make amends now.


If you didn't have the guts to support her when she was alive, there are only 3 reasons I can think of for taking action now: (a) soothe your conscience
(b) assets, inheritance, and what you might get out of the situation or (c) retaliation against your BIL.

Seriously, there are some posts that are so incredible, so contradictory and so slippery on factual issues that I find it difficult to believe that someone is actually serious, especially about addressing a fraud issue after it's been in process for 20 years. Sometimes these situations are too incredible to believe, and sometimes the potential heirs just have their hands out.