Eleven months after his mother's passing, the Saratoga County Sheriff's Office has charged a man from the town of Providence with elder abuse.
“It is very shocking. I ask myself why, why wouldn’t you provide the proper care to your mother,” said Sheriff Michael Zurlo.
Last January, Zurlo says his deputies were called to Saratoga Hospital, where an elderly woman had arrived with bedsores, hypothermia, and sepsis.
“Right when we got to the hospital it was pretty obvious it was elder abuse,” Zurlo said.
The victim, 64-year-old Muriel Carr, had been living with her son in a trailer in the town of Providence.
“We began an investigation. Unfortunately, the victim after a couple of days she was at the hospital, passed away,” Zurlo said.
On Tuesday of this week, deputies charged Carr’s 28-year-old son, Richard, with second-degree manslaughter and endangering the welfare of a vulnerable elderly person. Investigators say Muriel — who supported Richard financially — had been confined to her bed due to a medical condition and her son failed to provide the care she needed.
“Basically, if she has money coming in, you need to provide food, water, living conditions, etc. — which he was not doing,” Zurlo said.
A few months after his mother’s passing, investigators say Carr moved to South Carolina, where he was arrested earlier this week. After being extradited on Tuesday, he was arraigned a day later and pleaded not guilty to all charges.
“We’ve checked his movements from day one," Zurlo said. "We had forensics involved, we did a lot at the trailer, so this is why typically some cases take a little bit longer than others.”
After failing to post bail, Carr remains at the county jail. Had he been arrested after the first of the year when the state’s new bail reform laws take effect, Zurlo says he would’ve been released from custody immediately after his arrest.
“We are probably going to see a lot of these issues here after the first of the year, and people getting out for something like this that this guy did to his mother,” Zurlo said.