Couple Face Felonies in Elder Abuse Case

Gloucester couple face felonies in elder-abuse case

Jury trials scheduled for Tuesday, Thursday

July 10, 2011

By Dan Parsons

Two juries this week will decide whether two Cappahosic residents are responsible for the neglect and abuse of an elderly relative that died while in their care.

Erick Wilson, 48, is scheduled to answer one felony count of abuse involving the incapacitation of an adult causing injury on Tuesday in Gloucester County Circuit Court.

He is charged along with Gigi Garner, 44, in connection with the death of Regina Wynn, Wilson's 87-year-old aunt, who died in September.

Garner is scheduled to stand trial two days later on July 14. Both trials are to be decided by juries and both are scheduled for a single day, according to court records.

Wynn had been in her nephew's care since he checked her out of Walter Reed Convalescent Center the previous December.

She left the facility in good health, though she suffered from dementia and was being fed through a stomach tube. She was not able to care for her herself, nor was she able to make decisions for her own care, Barbara Lee Williams, a nurse practitioner at Walter Reed, testified at a preliminary hearing in February.

Matthew Steverson, a nurse at St. Mary's Hospital of Richmond, testified at the hearing that he noticed a very strong odor emanating from Wynn when he found her in Wilson's car the morning of Aug. 6. Wilson had driven Wynn to the hospital in Richmond, more than 70 miles from his home.

Wynn had plate-size bedsores where her flesh had rotted to the bone and weighed only 80 pounds when admitted to the hospital in August, according to court documents. She died in September.

SOURCE:    The Daily Press
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