Two nursing home caregivers sentenced to jail after 86-year-old patient left outside
Two of the three employees of a Grand Junction assisted living facility charged in the exposure death of an Alzheimers patient recently received short jail sentences.
That patient, 86-year-old Hazel Place, was found outside Grand Junction Cappella Assisted Living and Memory Care's building on June 14, 2021. She who was reportedly left unattended in the summer heat for six hours.
Prosecutors with the Colorado Attorney General's Office told CBS4 that temperatures that day reached 100 degrees.
The state office subsequently charged each of the three employees - Letticia Martinez, Jamie Johnston and Jenny Logan - with criminally negligent homicide, a felony.
Martinez, 28, pleaded guilty to the charge last year and was sentenced in December, according to online court records. The judge sentenced to Martinez to 30 days in jail and 100 hours of community service, then deferred that sentence for three years (meaning the sentence is suspended on the condition Martinez refrains from further criminal activity during that time frame, and the charges will be erased from her record if she fulfills that requirement). But Martinez did receive a sentence of three years probation on a separate misdemeanor charge of neglect.
Johnston, 32, pleaded to the felony charge in December and was sentenced Monday to 60 days in jail, 150 hours of community service, and three years probation.
Case records show Martinez and Johnston had also been originally charged with falsifying documents during the incident.
Logan, 52, was found not guilty of the charges against her by a Mesa County jury during the last week of January.
A relative of Place previously told CBS4 that she was informed the woman had died a half hour after being placed in a courtyard in the evening. However, an anonymous call the following day disputed that story.
"She goes your mom didn't die like that, that's not what happened," Place's daughter Donna Golden recalled. "She said you need to ask to see the surveillance, and you need an autopsy."
Her relatives said Place had lived at the assisted living home for three years. She was taken there after an Alzheimers diagnosis.
A spokesperson for Grand Junction Cappella Assisted Living and Memory Care, Pam Sullivan, provided the following statement to CBS4:
Today's sentencing of Jamie Johnston, who was terminated for her role in the unfortunate passing of Ms. Hazel Place in June of 2021, closes a very difficutl chapter in the criminal proceedings. We believe the legal outcomes of all three cases speak for themselves.
We are so sorry the family had to endure this tragic loss and endure these legal proceedings. We continue to hold them in our thoughts and prayers.
We are focused on the well-being and safety of the older adults we have the privilege to serve. We take this responsibility very seriously and are, as always, committed to the quality of care and services we provide.
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Sullivan confirmed that Martinez and Johnston were terminated immediately after the incident. Logan was later fired as well.
"Our hearts go out to the family of Hazel Place," Lawrence Pacheco, spokesman for the Colorado Attorney General's Office, told CBS4. "We hope that these cases bring attention to the need to protect older Coloradans with Alzheimer's Disease and other forms of dementia, as well as the need to account for their safety when they are entrusted to care facilities."
