A Crime Not to Care? : O.C. Death Raises Question of Whether Failing to Help Ailing Parent Is Illegal

Robert Heitzman’s final days were ugly beyond belief.

As his children and grandchildren feasted on a Thanksgiving Day dinner at the family’s home last year, the elderly Heitzman, the family patriarch, lay dying in his nearby bedroom.

No one fed the 68-year-old man, the children would later tell police. No one responded to his pleas to be taken to the bathroom. No one even asked him to join the festivities. Grandfather spent the day banished behind closed doors in a room authorities later deemed unfit for humans.

Following that dismal Thanksgiving Day, the retired plumber lay in his bed sometimes for days without food or water. A sharp spring protruded through the tattered old mattress, digging into his body. He was covered with bedsores, and emphysema had left him struggling to breathe.

Heitzman held on to life for only 10 more days.

His death on Dec. 3, 1990, triggered a seven-month police investigation that led to the arrest of three of his children: Jerry, 44, Richard, 48, and Susan, 31. The sons are charged with involuntary manslaughter and elder abuse and neglect. Susan faces only the charge of abuse and neglect.

The Heitzman case marks the first time in Orange County that care givers--children, in this instance--have been charged by the district attorney’s office with involuntary manslaughter in connection with the mistreatment or neglect of an elderly person.

“We’ve all had terrible cases, but this one really hits you rock bottom,” said Deputy Dist. Atty. Roseanne Froeberg, who is prosecuting the case along with Deputy Dist. Atty. Robert Molko.

“To think he fell victim to his own children. . . . I think it’s hard for us, as human beings, to fathom. It’s very grim and so depressing,” Froeberg said.

When you consider how this elderly man was treated, “you hope in heaven that the world has not become so bad that this is all it comes down to in life,” Molko said.

Although experts believe that many children who abuse their parents do so in retaliation for abuse they suffered at their parents’ hands years earlier, this is not what happened in the Heitzman case, defense attorneys say.

His children may simply have had neither the intelligence nor the wherewithal to deal with an ailing, aging parent, said Deputy Public Defender Michael McClellan, who is representing Jerry Heitzman.

The Heitzman clan “is not your classic, upscale, middle-class Orange County family,” he said. “They are a group of people who aren’t very bright, who live humdrum lives. (Jerry’s) most recent job was as a clerk at a (convenience store).”

For 22 years, the Heitzman children watched their father’s physical and mental condition gradually deteriorate. Once, a robust man who loved to fish and hunt with his sons, a stroke and heart attack left him partially paralyzed and mentally impaired. Evelyn, his wife and the mother of his five children, died in 1989.

Robert Heitzman became increasingly difficult to handle and to communicate with. His language became offensive and vulgar. He had lost control of his bodily functions. He told the children he didn’t want to go to a nursing home. So they hadn’t bothered to take him to a doctor in five years.

“The father became a burden no one wanted to bear,” McClellan said.

Attorney Greg Jones, who is defending Richard Heitzman, said: “This case is more about ignorance than lack of feeling. I don’t really see these people as being callous or insensitive. I see them as having been unable to perform the tasks they had assumed.”

The night before Robert Heitzman died, prosecutors say, the family gathered again for another big family dinner.

Richard, Susan, Jerry and some of the grandchildren who also lived at the house were present. Grandfather, who hadn’t had anything to eat or drink in two days, was kept in his room with the door shut.

When he called to be helped to the bathroom, Jerry told him he didn’t have time because he was preparing a roast, according to the police report.

Later that night, family members--except grandfather--gathered and picked names for Christmas gifts. Later, they watched videos. Although Jerry knew his father had soiled himself, he never bothered to clean him, according to the report.

The next afternoon when Jerry went in to check on his father, he found him dead. Rigor mortis was already present.

When paramedics responded to the 911 call at the Heitzman home that day, they were so shocked by the sight of the man’s physical condition and his filthy bedroom that they called Huntington Beach police.

“There was an extremely rancid odor emanating from this room,” Detective Jim Dowling noted. “There were large piles of dirty clothing rumpled and strewn about all across the floor. . . . Amongst the pile of dirty clothing, there appeared to be a man’s underwear covered with feces. . . . On top of the headboard was what appeared to be a partial upper denture plate that was extremely dirty.”

The detective found Heitzman lying on the bed wearing a dirty red sweat suit. His hair was grayish white and he had a full white beard.

As police searched the home for evidence that day, Jerry acknowledged to police that he had the primary responsibility of caring for his father. Police said he made this admission: “I know I am guilty of not taking care of him.”

Dr. Joseph J. Halka, a forensic pathologist, later concluded in his autopsy report that Heitzman died from a combination of neglect, malnutrition, dehydration and septic shock from the bedsores. One of the sores found on Heitzman measured as large as 10 1/2 by 8 inches.

Orange County Coroner Investigator Richard Rodriguez had watched as Halka performed the autopsy. After viewing the bruises and bedsores on Heitzman’s body, he told Huntington Beach police, the old man “had suffered from gross negligence in the care that he was being given.”

In charging the Heitzman siblings with felony crimes, prosecutor Molko contends that the defendants had a legal obligation to care for their ailing father and that their failure to fulfill their duty caused his death.

While most criminal neglect cases have in the past involved charges against parents for failing to care for children, Molko said the spotlight is now turning on grown children who neglect or abuse their parents.

“It appears that elder-abuse recognition and prosecution is at the stage that child abuse was 20 to 30 years ago,” Molko said in court papers. “There is no difference between a child abuse case and an elder-abuse case once a duty of care exists,” he argued.

But Jones, Richard Heitzman’s attorney, challenges the legal grounds for an involuntary manslaughter charge against his client.

“The district attorney is trying to make criminal that which he finds morally offensive,” Jones said.

While Jerry’s responsibility was to provide his father with daily care, Richard’s duty to the family was only financial, Jones said. Employed in quality control for two molding manufacturing firms, Richard was working 16 hours a day. Although he lived in the same house, he rarely saw his father and was not involved in his personal care, Jones said.

Although what happened may be “morally offensive to most people, it is no more criminal to Richard than it would be to someone failing to render aid to a person in distress,” Jones argued.

Jerry’s attorney, McClellan, said that his client “in his heart of hearts, wanted to provide better care for his father. Jerry feels bad about what happened. He wishes he could have done better. But he was trapped and didn’t know what to do. The father expressed to the kids that he didn’t want to go to a nursing home.

“Jerry didn’t have the skills to take care of his father. He should have had round-the-clock nursing care,” McClellan said. Frustrated and overwhelmed by the task, “they (the Heitzmans) got lazier and sloppier about it.”

“I think they really believed it was just his time. I think they felt he would die at home. But they didn’t want to kill him,” McClellan said.

Although Susan Heitzman no longer lived with her brothers and father in Huntington Beach, she spent many weekends at the home to continue her romantic relationship with one of her nephews, Richard Heitzman Jr., according to court files.

Richard Jr. lived at the home, along with his brother Raymond and a stepbrother, Gary Downey. None of the grandchildren were charged in connection with Heitzman’s death.

For years, Susan had lived with her father and brothers and had been responsible for caring for her father. But when she moved to Whittier about two years before his death, Jerry took over her responsibilities.

Despite the fact that she had moved out of the home, prosecutor Molko contends that she had a duty to help her father because she was aware of his poor health, living conditions and lack of hygiene.

But Susan’s attorney, Richard Schwartzberg, disagrees. He contends that because she had moved away from the home two years before his death, she could not be held legally responsible for what happened.

An Orange County Municipal judge in October ordered the three to stand trial on the charges. The trial is scheduled to start Feb. 24 in Superior Court. If convicted in the case, Jerry and Richard each face a maximum of five years in prison; Susan faces four years.

It’s not uncommon for abused elderly to be victims of their own children, according to Stephen Schrieber-Smith of the county’s Adult Protective Services. In 40% of the 1,440 cases of elderly abuse reported last year in Orange County, the suspected abusers are the victim’s children.

There are numerous “risk factors” that can lead children to mistreat or neglect their elderly parents, social workers and psychologists say.

The children may be continuing a cycle of violence or neglect that they suffered at the hands of their parents.

“If a child has a lot of resentment and anger over their childhood . . . or they are frustrated and don’t know how to handle their elderly parents,” the children may decide to “turn the table on the parents,” said Bonnie Kin, an associate professor of psychology at Cal State Dominguez Hills.

Alcohol or drug abuse by the children, or a lack of knowledge on how to care for an ill person or where to seek help, may lead to substandard care for their parents, specialists say. Problems also can erupt when the grown child is also dependent on the elderly parent for income, Schrieber-Smith said.

The work can be very demanding and frustrating especially if the parent is uncooperative or verbally abusive to the children taking care of them, Kin said.

David Heitzman, 37, a son who lives in Johnsonville, Ill., said he has good memories of his father before the stroke. “He was happy-go-lucky. He liked to hunt and fish with us. He could be stubborn, yet he was a good guy.”

After the stroke “he changed completely,” David said. “I think my dad wasn’t right in his own mind. He’d say weird things. He could give you a hard time. You couldn’t get him to take a bath. He was scared of it.”

But David insisted that his father never abused his children.

“My dad never touched us kids,” he said in an interview.

David Heitzman and the prosecution suspects that what happened may have come down to dollars and cents.

“They didn’t want to (put him in a nursing home) because they would lose their income,” David contended, referring to his father’s Social Security and veteran’s checks that helped support the household. “They were living in a big house that was costing them $1,200 a month rent. They needed the money,” he claimed.

“I just don’t understand it. I can’t imagine my dad laying in that bed and not being fed or cleaned for days,” David added.

Jerry Heitzman admitted to police that he sometimes slapped his father when he wouldn’t eat or made “grunting” sounds, but his older brother said they were more like “love taps.” About 1 1/2 weeks before his death, Jerry said he was angry because his father had soiled himself and he “smacked him up the side of his head,” according to the police report.

He told police that he intentionally withheld food from his father to prevent him from defecating on himself. He said he couldn’t “stomach” having to clean his father. When he did clean him, Jerry said he used a soft toilet bowl brush.

As his father’s condition deteriorated, Jerry became increasingly frustrated with the caretaking, he told police. Before his death, Jerry said his father only wanted to sleep and wasn’t interested in eating.

Lisa Bernier, the youngest of the five Heitzman children, told police that her father could be “feisty” and “ornery.”

Others said he used profanities and would shout racial epithets at the television when he would see a black person. Jerry told police he was reluctant to take his father to a hospital because he has an “evil mouth” and he was concerned he would not get along well with others.

“We thought it was terrible there,” said Bernier, who had last been to the home in October, 1990. She told police detectives that it was “awful” when you walked by her father’s bedroom and could smell a strong odor of urine and feces.

Bernier, 27, of Whittier, reached out once to help her father. Several months before his death, she called an elder-abuse hot line to report that her father was being neglected at his home. Bernier was concerned that her father’s health was failing. Whenever she called to speak to her father on the telephone, her brother, Jerry, insisted he couldn’t because he was in bed.

Gloria Frandsen, a social worker, went to the home on May 22, 1990, and advised Jerry and Richard to seek medical care for their father, who hadn’t seen a doctor in five years. She even gave them the name of a doctor who would make a house call.

Frandsen, who is no longer employed with Adult Protective Services, told police she even asked the old man whether he was OK. And although she had noted that he appeared “mentally deficient,” she accepted his affirmative response. Files indicate she never saw the condition of his bedroom or bathroom.

She concluded there was no evidence of abuse, and after a follow-up call, the case was closed.

Robert Heitzman’s last chance for getting help was gone.

Bernier told detectives before her brothers’ and sister’s arrest that she blamed her father’s death on Jerry and Richard. She blames them “for not taking care of my dad right.”

But she also told police she was “ashamed” of not having done more for him.

Richard Jr., Heitzman’s grandson, told police that he believed his grandfather “was giving up on life and just wanted to die,” according to police reports.

When detectives asked Susan why no one in the family sought medical attention for their father when it was so obvious that he needed help, she told them:

“Those of us who would, couldn’t--we didn’t have the availability or transportation, and those that could either didn’t have the time or wouldn’t take the time.”