SANDUSKY, Ohio (AP) — A home health care worker charged with involuntary manslaughter after her husband’s disabled 33-year-old son was found dead at their home was ordered Friday to stop working as a nurse.
David Arthur Sr. and Deborah Arthur were arraigned Friday on charges of involuntary manslaughter and failing to provide for a functionally impaired person. A judge set their bond at $250,000 each and told Deborah Arthur not to work in home health care while the case was ongoing.
Authorities said they charged the couple after seeing signs of severe medical neglect and discovering that David Arthur Jr. was covered in bed sores and malnourished when he died last weekend.
Erie County Sheriff Paul Sigsworth said David Arthur Jr.’s weight dropped from 300 pounds to less than 100 in the three years since he moved into his father’s house. It also appeared that the son, who was unable to walk, had been lying in the same spot in his bed for months, the sheriff said.
A message seeking comment left Friday with the Arthurs’ public defender was not immediately returned.
David Arthur Jr., who suffered a brain injury in a car accident when he was a teenager and years later lost the ability to walk, had been living in a nursing home until he moved in with his father and stepmother. Deborah Arthur called the sheriff’s office on Sunday to report that David Jr. had died at their home near Castalia, which is midway between Toledo and Cleveland.
The couple told investigators they were feeding him regularly and changing him, but his condition showed he had been neglected, Sigsworth said.
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