MEMPHIS, Tenn. — An Orange Mound woman was accused of leaving her mother in a bed for more than a month covered in her own feces.
Police arrested Secret Watson, 25, this week.
She has been charged with aggravated assault and adult abuse.
Police said they responded to the boarding house on Deadrick, after receiving a call from an ambulance crew.
When they arrived they found a woman, 49, inside a home.
She was lying on a bed, covered in feces that had soaked through the mattress.
She had ulcers too.
The woman told responders she had been there more than a month, and her daughter, Watson, was her caretaker.
The affidavit said Watson admitted to being her mother’s caretaker.
Emergency crews took the woman to the hospital.
“That’s sad to hear. I see people being in and out that house sometimes. At nighttime, they’ll be standing out there smoking,” said Malaysia Hill, who lived in the area.
Wednesday, representatives from different organizations met in East Memphis to work on elder abuse problems facing Memphis and Shelby County.
WREG met with Patti Tosti, the director of the Coordinated Response to Elder Abuse (CREA), during a training session.
She told us CREA had been at work about six months, and was a $3.45 million grant from the Plough Foundation to be used over three years.
According to Tosti, Adult Protective Services reported that in 2012, there were 600 substantiated cases of elder abuse in Shelby County.
She said most cases go unreported.
“There’s a lot of fear, a lot of shame. Ninety perscent of the abusers are family members,” Tosti said.
She said the law obligates everyone in the state of Tennessee to report suspected cases of elder abuse.
Tosti said anyone with tips should call Adult Protective Services at 1-888-APS-TENN.
Watson is scheduled to be in court May 18.