The Pennsylvania attorney general’s office plans to test DNA from a hair found on a wipe that was pulled from the throat of a woman who lived at a care home for people with developmental difficulties.
The testing is part of a renewed criminal investigation into Cheryl Yewdall’s choking death in Philadelphia nearly three years ago, according to court documents filed Thursday.
A $15 million wrongful death lawsuit filed by Yewdall’s mother casts suspicion on an unidentified staff member at the Merakey Woodhaven facility in Philadelphia. Attorneys for the family recently asked a judge to order DNA testing on a strand of hair that was stuck to the corner of the wipe — a potentially important piece of evidence missed by city homicide investigators. A pathologist for the family detected the hair by magnifying police evidence photos of the wipe.
There seems to be no good way to keep abusers out of places that care for the disabled, elderly and infirm. Background checks aren’t enough. Maybe there should be some sort of licensing requirement, although they’re desperate enough for staff as it is (which is a big part of the problem).
Also staff are poorly paid and have to endure abusive situations. I dated someone who worked in a care home and she was constantly subjected to sexual and other assaults. But at the same time it’s already prohibitively expensive to have to live in one.
I don’t know what the solution is but I would prefer euthanasia to ever living in one (for myself — I’m not advocating killing anyone just because they are old)
They’re going backwards in terms of requirements for caregivers. It’s cheaper to defund large programs and hire people as individual direct supports regardless of their resume as long as they have a clean BCI. Those large programs slowly disappearing means the individual caregivers end up with less resources avalible to them too. There are plenty of brilliant Direct Support Professionals and other types of caregivers, just also a lot of not so great one’s as well.
Maybe. But let’s not forget the gross incompetence of the police investigation and how commonplace that is, regardless of state or city.
I propose that when abusers are found to have caused a wrongful death, they are put to death in a slow and painful way. For example we could feed them to ants.