Daughter pleads guilty to neglecting Naperville mom who died

By the time Betty Tucker was taken to an emergency room, the 82-year-old Naperville woman was covered in bedsores matted with dog hair and feces.

On Tuesday, her daughter pleaded guilty to criminally neglecting the elderly woman, who died days after arriving at the hospital in July 2009.

Brenda K. Tucker, 55, was sentenced to 30 months of probation and 100 hours of community service under the terms of a plea agreement. She also must get a psychological evaluation and comply with any treatment recommendations, DuPage County Judge Robert Kleeman ruled.

Prosecutor Diane Michalak said the victim went to live with her daughter in Naperville after leaving a Peoria nursing home in January 2009. About six months later, the elderly woman arrived in the emergency room severely unkempt and with “an odor of rotting flesh so severe a nurse had difficulty breathing,” Michalak said in court.

Michalak said hospital staff spent nearly two hours and used 10 washcloths bathing her.

“Her hair was dirty and severely knotted and, as a nurse combed it, debris and dead fleas came out,” she said. “She had several wounds consistent with diabetic pressure ulcers on her feet, legs and buttocks. There was thick feces under her fingernails.”

Naperville police later searched the family's home on the 300 block of Elmwood Drive, where the mother and daughter lived with five dogs. Michalak described the first floor, where the victim spent much of her time, as “covered in feces and soaked with urine.” The home was deemed temporarily uninhabitable.

She said doctors had advised Tucker her mother required round-the-clock care, but Tucker claimed she thought the elderly woman needed only supervision.

Tucker, who last lived in McCullom Lake in McHenry County, was indicted about a year after her mother died but was not charged with causing the death. The death was attributed to heart-related problems with neglect as a contributing factor.

Tucker declined to comment outside of court. She could have faced up to five years in prison if convicted at trial.