Personal Injury Law

Massachusetts Nursing Home Violence: 98-Year-Old Dartmouth Nursing Resident Indicted for 100-Year-Old Roommate?s Homicide

By Altman & Altman

In Massachusetts, a 98-year-old nursing home patient is charged with killing a 100-year-old woman. Laura B. Lundquist is accused of strangling Elizabeth W. Barrow. The two of them were roommates at Brandon Woods of Dartmouth. Lundquist has suffered from dementia.

Barrow?s body was discovered in her bed last September. She had a plastic bag over her head. While suicide was explored as a possible cause of death, autopsy results say she was murdered by manual strangulation.

The victim?s son says he asked nursing home workers at the Dartmouth, Massachusetts nursing home to separate the two women, who did not appear to get along. Scott Barrow claims that Lundquist accused Barrow of stealing from her and complained about her visitors. The Massachusetts nursing home says that they asked the two women if either of them wanted to move to a different room but they both refused.

Last week, New Bedford Superior Court Judge Lloyd MacDonald sent Lundquist to a state hospital where she will undergo a lengthy competency evaluation prior to her arraignment. She is charged with second-degree murder.

Massachusetts Nursing Home Negligence
Nursing homes are supposed to make sure that patients with violent tendencies are closely monitored and/or are kept separate from the other patients. They are also supposed to determine whether patients suffering from mental illness pose a danger to themselves or others and if so, nursing home employees must take the proper steps to prevent that patient from hurting others. Failure to provide this protection can give an assisted living facility patient and/or family members cause for filing a Boston nursing home negligence lawsuit.

Examples of nursing home patient violence:

? Molestation
? Physical assault
? Sexual assault
? Murder
? Rape

Woman, 98, charged in slay, Boston Herald, December 12, 2009

Roomate, 98, indicted for murder in 100-year-old woman's nursing home death, SouthCoastToday, December 11, 2009

Related Web Resources:
Aggression between nursing-home residents more common than widely believed, studies find, Cornell University, May 29, 2008

Nursing Homes, Mass.gov

Full post as published by Boston Injury Lawyer Blog on December 15, 2009 (boomark / email).