A trio of nursing home employees are facing elder abuse charges after they allegedly recorded Snapchat videos of themselves playing with a female patient’s pubic hair, showing several people going to the bathroom and even mocking a dead woman.
It happened at Golden Age Nursing Home in Guthrie, Oklahoma, about 30 miles north of downtown Oklahoma City. Cops arrested McKenzie Bolfa, 20, along with Aubrey Granata and Jade Williams, both 21, late last month.
The Guthrie Police Department started investigating April 5 when a former employee and friend of the suspects received a Snapchat from Williams allegedly showing Bolfa twisting the pubic hair of a female patient. The caption said “give me a mohawk,” a probable cause affidavit obtained said. Williams allegedly recorded the video with Granata in the background laughing.
Cops say the patient was nude from the waist down and lay motionless. The person who received the video alerted nursing home administrators who in turn called police.
Bolfa in an interview with cops said she didn’t know exactly why they wanted to speak with her other than that she heard a rumor about her completing perineal care on a patient who had gone to the bathroom on herself. She claimed she did not know about any video of the incident. Bolfa said she enlisted the help of Williams and Granata to clean the patient up.
When asked about her twisting the woman’s pubic hair, Bolfa said she was just cleaning up fecal matter. Bolfa also said if she was laughing it was because her and the patient were joking around. She insisted that patients would know they were being photographed if there were any pictures taken of her in the nursing home.
But cops didn’t buy her explanation.
“They had excuses for some of their behavior, but it didn’t really match up with the evidence that we had uncovered,” Guthrie Police Chief Don Sweger told local NBC affiliate KFOR.
Cops look at all three of the suspects’ phones and found more disturbing videos. Several showed patients going to the bathroom, including one that showed close-up of a resident’s genitals and another where a woman’s breast is exposed, the affidavit said. One allegedly depicts Williams pulling down the patient’s pants, exposing her diaper. Detectives also uncovered a photo of Bolfa laying on bed next to a dead patient with her mouth open wide, mimicking the woman’s facial expression, according to the affidavit.
“It’s probably one of the saddest things,” Sweger told KFOR. “We take service to everybody very responsibly, but especially for those who don’t have a voice for themselves.”
The nursing home released the following statement to local media outlets:
Golden Age Nursing Home endeavors to ensure the safety and well-being of its residents. Upon receiving information related to certain allegations against its employees, the facility began working with local law enforcement and other appropriate authorities to respond.
The employees involved had cleared background checks, were educated related to resident’s rights/safety and have been terminated from employment. We are committed to protecting the privacy and safety of the residents and families involved and will continue to keep them updated with any developments related to this matter.
Williams remains in the Logan County Jail while the other two suspects have since posted their $50,000 bonds. They have court dates scheduled for Aug. 8.
In Japan, elders are respected.
Not in dysfunctional Amerika. Amerika is overflowing with lowlifes!!!
When I worked (always the night shift) in a nursing home, I came away believing that the pay was so low, only the dregs of society would take those jobs. They allowed uncertified, untrained people to administer medicinal nitroglycerin paste as if it were toothpaste in a commercial. I heard many inappropriate comments about patient’s private areas. I quit after they did nothing about a male aide (“dregs of society”) who pulled the pins out of my hair nearly every night so that my hair hung down, against my personal dress code; he wouldn’t keep his hands off. The poor, poor residents who were abused were numerous, and management appeared to be blind and deaf about it. I still want to vomit when I think about what went on there without remedy, and that was 40 years ago. If you have relatives in a nursing home, visit frequently and unexpectedly any time you can manage it.
Better yet, do not trust your relativrs to a nursing home.
People like that should be ended.