Police: Elderly Indiana woman stayed in chair for 3 months
LYNN, Ind. — A Randolph County man was arrested this week after authorities determined his elderly mother had been sitting in a chair for three months since breaking her hip.
Authorities also alleged they found squalid conditions in the home where Phillip E. Weimer, 54, lived with his parents in the 400 block of West Church Street in Lynn.
Weimer was arrested Monday on preliminary charges of neglect of a dependent and nonsupport of a parent. He was being held in the Randolph County jail in Winchester on Tuesday under a bond of $8,000.
According to a Lynn Police Department report, authorities were sent to the home late Sunday night after Weimer reported he was having a heart episode.
Town police officers and firefighters went to the house and saw “a half-clothed elderly female ... laying across a chair on her back with a white wire rack shelf laying over her body.”
When Weimer opened the front door, Lynn Police Chief Brad Fisher reported he was “overcome by a very strong and pungent odor of urine and feces.”
When the younger Weimer was being placed in an ambulance, he expressed concern about his father’s ability to care for his mother, since she is unable to walk.
Weimer said his mother had remained in the same chair since falling and breaking her hip three months earlier and had not been seen by a physician, the police chief wrote.
Asked how the elderly woman used the restroom, her son responded, “In the chair,” Fisher wrote, adding that he “cleaned her up the best he could.”
Weimer’s mother confirmed to the police chief she had not left the chair for three months and insisted she wanted to remain in her home to die.
The elderly woman was removed from the home through a window, due to the house’s cluttered condition, the report said. Another Lynn officer was overcome by “a very strong, pungent odor” during that process.
The senior citizen was taken to Reid Hospital in Richmond, where she was admitted. Nurses told Fisher they found “a large amount of feces, pills, debris, worms and several open sores” on her body.
Her husband was also admitted to Reid Hospital for evaluation.
When Phillip Weimer was released from the Richmond hospital, he was questioned by Lynn police and then arrested. He reportedly expressed regret he had set in motion the events that led to his mother being removed from their home.
Randolph County Prosecutor David Daly’s office on Tuesday was given 72 hours to file formal charges in the case.
While serving a search warrant at the house, authorities, wearing protective suits and respirators, said they found “deplorable living conditions,” with “much mice and rat droppings, along with crawling and flying insects.”
An official with the Randolph County Health Department said the house was “unfit for human habitation,” according to Fisher.
Call Muncie Star Press reporter Douglas Walker at (765) 213-5851.
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