Dad’s Caregiver Thought She Won With His Dementia Diagnosis, But Karma Caught Her.

The Perfect Solution Turns Poison

Our father’s caregiver thought she’d won the lottery when Dad got diagnosed with dementia, but she got her biggest karma six months ago. We hired Diane through an agency to help Dad with daily tasks after his mild stroke.

He could still walk and talk but needed help with medications and doctor appointments. My brother Victor and I both worked full-time and needed someone reliable.

Diane had glowing references and 15 years of experience. She seemed genuinely caring, and Dad liked her immediately, saying she reminded him of our mother who’d passed three years prior.

We thought we’d found the perfect solution. Within weeks, Diane started overstepping and rearranged all Dad’s furniture without asking.

She said the feng shui was better for his recovery. She threw out Mom’s things from the bedroom, claiming they were dust collectors affecting his breathing.

She started cooking elaborate meals and insisting we weren’t invited because Dad needed calm dining experiences. When we’d visit, she’d hover constantly, interrupting our conversations.

The Walls Close In

She would remind Dad to take pills he’d already taken or rest when he wasn’t tired. Then came the isolation tactics.

She convinced Dad his friends were too exhausting for his heart. She told him Victor and I only visited to check on our inheritance and said the neighbors gossiped about him being weak.

Within two months, Dad barely left his room. When we visited, he seemed confused and distant.

Diane would speak for him, saying he’d had a bad night or wasn’t feeling conversational. We tried talking to Dad alone, but Diane always had an excuse why she needed to be present.

She said he got agitated without her, might fall, or could forget important medical information. Three months in, Dad started showing serious confusion.

He couldn’t remember our names sometimes and talked about Mom like she was alive. He accused us of stealing things that were right in front of him.

A Desperate Discovery

Diane said the stroke had triggered dementia and that the doctors warned her this might happen. We hadn’t heard anything from his doctors, but when we called, they said Diane handled all communications now as Dad’s primary caregiver with medical power of attorney.

We never authorized that. We demanded to see the paperwork, and Diane produced documents with Dad’s shaky signature giving her complete control over his medical decisions.

The lawyer said it looked legitimate and that if Dad was competent when he signed it, we couldn’t contest it. Diane started limiting our visits to once a week, then every two weeks, saying Dad got too confused with too many people around.

She moved into the house full-time and said Dad needed round-the-clock care. She started calling herself his girlfriend, then fiancee, and posted photos on social media of her wearing Mom’s jewelry that she’d supposedly thrown away.

We tried getting Adult Protective Services involved, but Dad told them he was happy and that Diane took excellent care of him. The social worker said there was no evidence of abuse and that older people had the right to make their own choices.

Last month, Diane announced they were getting married. She said Dad had proposed during a moment of clarity and that he didn’t want to die alone.

The Secret Investigation

The ceremony would be private, and immediate family were not invited because we’d been so unsupportive. She’d already gotten Dad to sign a new will leaving her everything, saying his children had abandoned him in his time of need.

Victor hired a private investigator out of desperation. What he found changed everything.

Diane had done this twice before in different states, targeting elderly men with recent strokes. Both men had developed sudden dementia, both had married her quickly, and both had died within a year, leaving her everything.

The investigator also discovered Diane was putting something in Dad’s food. He had photos of her crushing pills that weren’t his prescribed medications.

We couldn’t go to the police without proof, so we got creative. Victor’s wife, Ellen, was a pharmaceutical rep and knew exactly which drug combinations would cause Dad’s symptoms.

We invited Diane to lunch to discuss the wedding peacefully. While she was gone, Ellen and I searched the house and found antipsychotics mixed with sedatives hidden in a vitamin bottle.

Watching the Poisoner

We replaced them with identical-looking vitamins and then installed tiny cameras in Dad’s room and kitchen. Within four days, Dad’s confusion started clearing.

The cameras caught everything over the next week. Diane crushed pills into Dad’s morning oatmeal every single day, grinding them with the back of a spoon until they were powder.

She checked over her shoulder each time, even though she thought she was alone. Then she’d stir the powder into his food until it disappeared completely.

I watched her do the same thing with his afternoon smoothie and his tea. My stomach twisted watching her poison my father three times a day with such careful planning.

She was so practiced, like she’d done this a thousand times before. Ellen had to leave the room twice because watching someone methodically drug an elderly man made her physically sick.

By day six, Dad asked Diane where his reading glasses were using a complete sentence. She froze halfway through responding because he hadn’t spoken that clearly in months.

The Trap is Set

You could see the panic flash across her face on the camera footage. By day eight, Dad asked why Victor and I hadn’t visited lately.

Diane scrambled to make excuses about us being busy with work, her voice getting higher and faster. The cameras caught Diane pacing in the kitchen after that conversation, chewing her nails and checking her phone over and over.

We met with Prudence Hassan the following Tuesday morning. She reviewed the pills, the photos, the camera footage, and the investigator’s full report.

Prudence told us we had a really strong case but needed to move carefully to avoid legal problems. She explained that confronting Diane directly could be considered entrapment or messing with evidence.

We needed to involve the authorities first and let them collect the evidence officially. Prudence called Detective Shirley Flores with the police elder abuse unit right there in the meeting.

We arrived at the police station at 8 the next morning with all our evidence. Detective Flores watched the camera footage, and her jaw got tighter and tighter.

Justice is Served

She told us she’d seen plenty of elder abuse in her 15 years on the job, but this hit different. She said this was one of the clearest cases she’d ever seen because we had actual video evidence.

The next afternoon, Detective Flores and two uniformed officers arrived at Dad’s house with a warrant. They caught her in the act while she was giving Dad his afternoon medication.

They found the vitamin bottle with the hidden pills and the mortar and pestle she used to grind them. Dad sat in his chair in the living room looking way more alert than he’d been in months.

Diane sat on the couch in handcuffs, looking cold and calculating. Detective Flores stood in front of her reading her rights from a small card.

Diane was arrested for elder abuse, fraud, and giving harmful substances without a medical license. When the detective finished, Diane said she wanted her lawyer and wouldn’t say anything else.

Part of me felt good seeing Diane led away in handcuffs, but mostly I just felt exhausted relief. We turned and walked into our father’s house freely for the first time in months.