The Colorado Springs Gazette final

Worker acquitted in death at care center

Dementia patient left outside in heat

BY JENNY DEAM jenny.deam@gazette.com

A former assisted living health care worker in Grand Junction was found not guilty on Thursday in connection with the death of 86-year-old Hazel Place, a dementia patient left unattended outside in 100-degree heat for six hours in June 2021.

The Mesa County district court jury of eight men and four women deliberated just over 15 minutes before finding Jenny Logan, 52, not guilty of one count of negligent homicide and one count of atrisk neglect resulting in death.

The death of Hazel Place and the events that followed was the subject of a Jan. 19 investigative report by The Gazette.

Logan was one of three health workers on duty in the memory unit of Cappella of Grand Junction assisted living facility on June 21, when Place wandered outside to an enclosed courtyard at 2:19 p.m. on a day when the National Weather Service had issued its first excessive heat warning for the region.

Place, who can be seen on the facility’s surveillance video trying to get up but failing to, remained outside in scorching heat until about 8:15 p.m., when the husband of another resident happened to glance out one of the facility hallway windows and saw her slumped in a patio love seat. Because Place was considered a fall risk, there had been a standing order she was to checked hourly. Six hours

passed with no one doing so.

The two other workers in the memory unit that day, Letticia Martinez and Jamie Johnston, both pleaded guilty to reduced charges.

Martinez was sentenced on Dec. 8 to 30 days in county jail, 100 hours of community service, a three-year deferred sentence on one count of misdemeanor caretaker neglect and one count of felony negligent homicide. Johnston is scheduled to be sentenced next week.

According to investigators in the case, Martinez and Johnston falsified information in the facility’s computerized system that logs medication distribution and safety checks to make it appear that Place had been regularly monitored throughout the afternoon and early evening.

In the four-day trial, Elizabeth Espinosa Krupa, Logan’s defense attorney, argued that her client was “dutiful, diligent and deceived,” contending that it was the other two defendants who were to blame for Place’s death.

She said Logan had been misled into thinking Place was being watched by her co-workers.

Krupa could not immediately be reached for comment Thursday night.

When the verdict was read, Logan broke down in tears, according to those in the courtroom.

Donna Golden and Steve Place, two of Place’s three children, issued a statement Thursday night on the verdict.

“It is unbelievable that a jury of our peers would find Jenny Logan not guilty of failing to do her job when our mother with Alzheimer’s and dementia was left unattended for over six hours in 100-degree heat to die,” they said.

The family said they initially were told that their mother had died a peaceful death, and it was not until a former Cappella worker called them and police the next day that they learned how their mother died.

LOCAL & STATE

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2023-02-03T08:00:00.0000000Z

2023-02-03T08:00:00.0000000Z

https://daily.gazette.com/article/281638194353245

The Gazette, Colorado Springs