Can anything be done to the caregiver (my brother-in-law) who stole ($300k+) and forced mother-in-law to live in horrific filth? When she died, he put her body on the driveway so the police wouldn't go in the home, which they did. Because of the horrible conditions inside the home, they started an investigation but said there is no longer a "victim." My brother-in-law also went to the bank the day she died and had the lock box drilled open. He was on her account so the bank, although they knew he had been stealing from her for years, had to let him open it. There was probably quite a bit of cash in there. We knew he was stealing from her over the past 20 years but she wouldn't let us intervene. She didn't want to upset him. We also knew their living conditions were bad but didn't know they were this horrific. She told us she didn't want our kids to see her messy house. We were there about three years ago and got things a bit cleaned. Again, I wasn't permitted to call social services because she would have been embarrassed in her small town. I'm very upset with myself for not doing more. Can anything be done now to the brother-in-law?
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.
AMEN
Done deal. Close the book, this story has ended.
It was that major inconsistency that I wanted to highlight, since it goes to credibility of the poster's story and failure to act.
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.
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.
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