Lakewood Couple Held in Case of Elder Abuse

A Lakewood couple were in jail in lieu of $50,000 bail each Thursday in the second case of elder abuse, or neglect, filed by the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office within a week.

Roger Louis Hummel, 54, and his wife, Cindy Lee Hummel, 31, were formally charged Wednesday in connection with the death of his mother, Otelia Boithillet, 80. She died Saturday after being taken to a hospital from the Lakewood home she shared with the couple, authorities said.

In the earlier case, free-lance radio news and traffic reporter Cynthia Jeter Green, 38, was charged with elder abuse, or neglect, after her mother, Virginia Jeter, 77, died on Dec. 26.

Obscure Law

Jeter, whom Green cared for in her North Hollywood home, died of hardening of the arteries and cachexia, or general emaciation, hours after she arrived at a Panorama City hospital. Green had called paramedics, thinking her mother had suffered a stroke.

The Hummels and Green have been charged under a relatively new and little used state Penal Code section outlawing the willful abuse, or neglect, of anyone over age 65 that is likely to cause great bodily harm or death.

The felony crime is punishable by up to four years in state prison.

Investigations that could lead to charges of second-degree murder, or manslaughter, are continuing in both deaths.

According to authorities, cases filed under the 1984 law are difficult to prosecute because elderly victims are frequently too feeble or fearful to testify against relatives.

When the victims die, as in the two current cases, prosecutors say, evidence can be even more difficult to gather. Whether neglect is willful or intentional, they say, is particularly hard to prove.

Dies in Hospital

In the Lakewood case, authorities said, ambulance attendants found Boithillet in a fairly clean bedroom. But, investigators said, the woman was in a deplorable physical and sanitary condition, with her vertebrae sticking through her skin, acid burns from her own urine, and her disabled left arm infested with maggots.

Conscious, but unable to speak, Boithillet was taken to La Palma Hospital, which the Hummels had called in requesting help for “an old lady that won’t eat,” officials said. She died about six hours later.

Alerted by hospital officials shortly before the woman died, Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies arrested the Hummels on Saturday night. Cindy Hummel posted $5,000 bond. After obtaining murder warrants, deputies rearrested her on Sunday morning.

The Hummels were formally arraigned on the elder neglect charge Wednesday. But Deputy Dist. Atty. Robert K. Gosney said Thursday that further investigation could lead to charges of second-degree murder, or manslaughter.

“They just let her deteriorate, when they should have gotten medical care long before they did,” Gosney said of the couple. “It was unconscionable.”

The prosecutor said Boithillet apparently had suffered a stroke, which disabled her left arm, about 10 years ago, and that she had been confined to the bed in the Hummels’ rented home for the last seven to 10 years.

He said an autopsy showed that the woman died from acute malnutrition and pneumonia, but that the coroner is continuing his investigation.

Gosney confirmed that Boithillet had rickets, a softening of the bones caused by a lack of Vitamin D and sunlight, which caused a hip and her left arm to break when she was moved to the hospital.

Deputy Public Defender Gregory C. Fisher, who was appointed to represent Cindy Hummel, said Boithillet was a former nurse who feared placement in a nursing home and apparently had asked to remain in her son’s home.

“Certainly they (the Hummels) were not trying to cause her to suffer or let her lie there until she was dead,” Fisher said. “She was there for years. Common sense would tell you that if completely neglected she wouldn’t have been there for weeks.”

Attorney Michael L. Schuur, appointed Wednesday by Los Cerritos Municipal Court Commissioner Leland H. Tipton to represent Roger Hummel, could not be reached for comment.

Roger Hummel operates a sign-making shop in the garage of the house.