A North Carolina caregiver is facing a first-degree murder charge after authorities say she brutally abused a nonverbal woman with autism who had been placed in her care.
Marlo Wallace, 59, is accused in the death of 23-year-old Aaliyah Fortner, a vulnerable young woman who lived in Wallace’s home in Dallas, North Carolina.
The investigation began on Oct. 26, 2025, after Gastonia police responded to a crash involving a semi-truck and Wallace’s vehicle. Authorities believe Wallace had tried to die by suicide by crashing her car.
After she was taken to the hospital, Wallace allegedly told officers that “they would find a deceased person” at her home on Green Brook Trail.
Police went to the residence and found Fortner dead.
Fortner had been entrusted to Wallace’s care and was living in the home at the time of her death.
According to a probable cause affidavit, Wallace allegedly assaulted Fortner on multiple occasions. Authorities accused her of hitting Fortner with objects, pushing her to the ground, using a Taser on her, kicking her and stomping on her head.
Wallace was initially charged with concealment of death from unnatural causes, patient abuse and neglect, and felony assault of an individual with disabilities.
After autopsy results came back, prosecutors upgraded the case and accused Wallace of killing Fortner with “malice aforethought.” The autopsy findings have not been publicly released.
Fortner’s loved ones say the most heartbreaking part is that she was nonverbal and could not tell anyone what was happening to her.
“For her to be alone through all of that and then for it to end the way it did, I hate to even think what was going on in her mind,” her brother, Caleb Simpson, told WSOC.
Another woman connected to Fortner’s care, Vera Williams, has also been charged with patient abuse and neglect and felony assault of an individual with disabilities.
“It hurts,” Simpson said. “My sister went through all of that alone.”
The case has also raised serious questions about how Fortner ended up in Wallace’s home. WCNC reported that authorities had revoked Wallace’s guardianship of another nonverbal adult living in her home about two years before Fortner was placed there.
Simpson said his sister should never have been put in Wallace’s care.
“Watch who you trust. Everybody should be angry about something like this,” he told WCNC. “Let’s say you sit there and you trust the state, and then they just fail you like that. Makes no sense.”
Wallace remains jailed at the Gaston County Jail. Her next court appearance is scheduled for June 19.
The family should be so ashamed. They’re guilty also. They obviously never saw or checked on her because had they done so, they certainly would have seen injuries from her being pushed down, assaulted, tased, and stomped on the head. They threw her in someone else’s care and didn’t check the background or they would have known someone had lost licensing prior to their “loved one” being placed. They are terrible people too. If they couldn’t care for her, that’s one thing, but neglecting to check on her enough to notice she was being abused is another.