An elderly woman in Massachusetts was found dying, her limp body literally fused to a mattress infested with cockroaches, bedbugs and feces. The daughter, granddaughter and nurse were charged with manslaughter, neglect of an elderly person, theft and Medicaid fraud. Dinora Cardoso, 79, had to be surgically removed from the mattress to which she was attached but died two days later from necrotizing fasciitis, a flesh-eating disease, and sepsis due to infected ulcers.
By the time Dinora’s daughter, fifty-three-year-old Eva, called an ambulance for her mother, doctors could see that the situation had severely deteriorated. Although Eva received up to $140,000 from Mass Health Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program coverage for allegedly caring for her mother who suffered from diabetes, doctors determined that the elderly woman never received proper care. Moreover, she was left alone for weeks while insects infested her bed. In fact, according to officials following the case, “the level of insect infestation was such as to suggest a development of several weeks.”
As Mirror News reports, a week before the 911 call, sixty-four-year-old nurse Lisa Hamilton, who was supposed to be caring for Dinora, reported after a medical examination that the woman was “clean, well cared for, alert, and that her diabetes was well controlled.” According to prosecutors, Hamilton “made no mention of ulcers, feces, bedbugs or cockroaches.”
In addition, bank records reveal that Eva Cardoso regularly gave part of her PCA check disbursed to take care, as a personal assistant in Dinora’s care, to 31-year-old Kayla Cardoso, the elderly woman’s granddaughter. Now the three women defendants are scheduled to appear in court next Jan. 15, 2025.
