Police to Seek Murder Charges Against Nursing Home Operator

Los Angeles police said Friday that they will seek murder charges against the operator of a Lake View Terrace home for the elderly where two women residents became sick from a lack of heat in the facility and later died.

The women, both residents of the Mountainview Board and Care Home, were hospitalized with hypothermia within 15 days of each other last winter, authorities said. They were identified as Frances Innis, 76, who died Feb. 3, and Carolyn Fancon, 71, who died Christmas Day.

Investigators said the home’s operator, Rebecca Cate, a nurse, used little or no heat in the large residential house that is state-licensed to care for up to six people. State records indicate temperatures in the home, which now has no residents, were found to be in the low 60s during inspections in winter.

Detective Stephen Fisk said both deaths were because of negligence. “There was no heat in the residence, or not adequate heat for an older person,” he said. “We now have two homicides out of the same place. We are seeking a murder filing.”

Fisk said he would meet Monday with Los Angeles County Deputy Dist. Atty. William Kelly, who is reviewing medical reports on the two deaths and other evidence, to ask for the murder charges. Kelly could not be reached for comment.

Cate was at the home Friday in the 11400 block of Jeff Avenue but declined to talk about the deaths or the investigation.

On Christmas morning paramedics were called to the Mountainview home and found Fancon semiconscious on the floor, apparently after a fall, authorities said. Paramedics found the thermostat in the home turned down and measured Fancon’s body temperature at 73 to 75 degrees, compared to the normal 98.6.

Fancon died at Pacifica Hospital of the Valley a few hours later and on March 16, 1989, the Los Angeles County medical examiner’s office ruled the case a homicide. “This unfortunate lady died of hypothermia due to negligence (no heat in the residence),” an autopsy report concludes.

On Jan. 4, an inspector from the state Department of Social Services, which licensed the facility, visited the home after the agency was told of the death.

Daniel Garcia, a staff attorney for the agency, said the inspector found the temperature was 61 degrees inside the home at noon. Cate was cited for not keeping the temperature above a state mandated 68 degrees.

Six days after the inspection, Innis was taken from the home to Henry Mayo Newhall Memorial Hospital suffering from hypothermia. Her body temperature was 84 degrees, authorities said. She died 24 days later after developing pneumonia.

Garcia said the Department of Social Services is in the process of revoking the license Cate received in December, 1987, to operate the facility.

After Innis died, the one resident who remained in Cate’s care was placed in another home after inspectors again found low temperatures in the home--ranging from 62 to 66 degrees.

“We have a verbal agreement from Mrs. Cate that she is not going to operate,” Garcia said. “We have been monitoring the home very closely.”