Prosecutor: West Boca couple let woman, 89, live in 'starkness and filth'
Toby and Kerstin Fenn are on trial, charged with murder
By Missy Diaz
South Florida Sun Sentinel
September 4, 2009
Once fiercely independent, stylish and elegant, Elly Lorey drew her last breath long after her brain stopped working properly.It will be up to a Palm Beach County jury to decide whether her death was the result of inhumane treatment by her daughter and son-in-law, Kerstin and Toby Fenn, or whether she succumbed naturally to Alzheimer's disease.
The Fenns, who live west of Boca Raton, are charged with first-degree murder and elder abuse.
However, defense attorney Michael Salnick said Lorey, 89, faded away. He said the Fenns did their best to fulfill a promise to Lorey that she wouldn't die in a nursing home.
"As Elly Lorey was dragged further and further into a black hole ... her daughter and son-in-law were committed to caring for her," Salnick told the jury Friday during opening statements. "This was the natural death of an 89-year-old woman who suffered from Alzheimer's disease."
The Fenns told law enforcement authorities that they did the best they could with the in-home care they provided.
Assistant State Attorney Angela Miller conceded Lorey suffered from dementia, but Miller said the care that Lorey received expedited her death.
Lorey lived in "starkness and filth" in a locked, feces- and urine-stained room akin to a cage, she said.
Fed honeybuns, Ramen noodles and occasionally hot dog slices or ice cream, Lorey had shriveled to 80 pounds by the time she died in September 2005.
The family had lived for a year in the Woodchuck Court home in the Cimarron neighborhood.
The medical examiner ruled that the cause of death was starvation and dehydration.
if convicted as charged, the Fenns could be sentenced to life in prison.
Abridged
SOURCE: South Florida Sun Sentinel
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