(Photos Courtesy of Racine County Sheriff)
KENOSHA, Wis. — Jury selection is set to begin Monday in the long-awaited criminal trial against three former caregivers at Parkside Manor, the assisted living facility found liable last year in a $4 million civil verdict for the death of 89-year-old Helen Ende, a memory care resident who froze to death after staff failed to notice she had wandered outside.
Opening statements and testimony are scheduled to begin Tuesday before Kenosha County Circuit Court Judge Jason Rossell. The trial is expected to last the entire week.
Demontae Collins, 36, of Racine; Susan Valentin, 42, of Kenosha; and Liliana Lozano, 21, also of Racine, are each charged with recklessly abusing a patient causing death, a Class C felony punishable by up to 40 years in prison and a $100,000 fine.
While Collins and Valentin remain free on bond, Lozano is still in custody at the Kenosha County Jail pending trial.
The charges stem from the early morning hours of December 19, 2022, when Ende exited the secured memory care wing of Parkside Manor, setting off a door alarm. Despite facility policy requiring an immediate headcount and outdoor search, staff failed to investigate. Surveillance video showed Ende outside the building for several minutes, attempting to get back in. Her body was discovered more than seven hours later, lying on the frozen ground near the building’s north entrance. The temperature had dipped to 9 degrees.
Police and prosecutors allege that all three defendants were on duty that night but failed to follow basic safety procedures. Lozano admitted to turning off the door alarm. Valentin refused to file a report on the alarm incident. Collins was captured on surveillance footage leaving the facility twice during his shift, once for more than two hours.
Ende’s death triggered both criminal charges and a civil wrongful death lawsuit against the facility and its parent company, Encore Senior Living. In November, a Kenosha County jury found that Encore intentionally disregarded Ende’s safety and awarded her family $4 million in damages. Habush Habush & Rottier attorneys Benjamin Wagner and Molly Lavin represented the family, rejecting a $400,000 pretrial settlement offer and taking the case to verdict.
“This conduct cannot be tolerated,” Wagner said after the civil verdict. “It’s enough to deter not only Encore but others in the industry throughout Wisconsin, to be better.”
Encore operates more than a dozen assisted living facilities across the state. The verdict has added momentum to calls for stricter oversight of memory care facilities in Wisconsin.
Ende’s son, Brian Ende, has been vocal about the emotional toll his family endured and is expected to attend the criminal trial.
If convicted, the defendants face significant prison time for what prosecutors describe as a catastrophic failure of responsibility and care. Jury selection begins Monday, with testimony scheduled to commence Tuesday morning.
18 Responses
…… BOTH Encore facilities in Kenosha should be investigated….
Already pled guilty…
This is/was a known issue in this facility— ongoing. How is the leadership avoiding charges?
Right? I worked there for a couple of weeks when Kristen was the administrator and she KNEW second and third shift workers were leaving for extended amounts of time and slept during third shift.
Kedzey, or whatever her name was, was one of them.
Management has changed several times since this happened. I don’t understand how the administrator at the time wasn’t charged since she knew and allowed the staff negligence to continue.
Don’t put your lived ones in a “care” facility. Only feral animals work there. They’re abusive, they steal, and they don’t give a shit about your loved one.
Very true. The type of workers at these places are the ones too dumb to become a CNA, much less a nurse. The lowest of the low for workers at these places.
All three need to be deported!
wtf is deportation gone do for American citizens?
Such a shame this happened to this patient. They say that the cold put her to sleep so she had no pain. The family has pain knowing their loved one went this way.
Assisted living costs a bomb but for some reason the facility can’t or won’t hire competent help.
They have video of the victim being outside and trying to get back in. The door was locked from the outside. She went through a lot of suffering before she “went to sleep.”
i remember when USI had white folks. many moons ago.
The good ol days….
Oh stop it!
I worked there for a couple of weeks. Only a couple of weeks. I could not stand what I witnessed.
Workers would steal medication from the med cart. A man with dementia was terrified of the workers so he would never liked to be changed. 3 workers would man handle him and force him to dress. Another women; Linda was her name, left almost daily, with her husband and would return covered in bruises, black eyes, broken fingers, and would continually tell us her husband was raping her. It was calmed on her dementia and later stated that nothing could be done because “he’s her husband.” “Kedzey,” was a second shift worker and was friends with the administrator “Kristen.” I witnessed her screaming at one of the residents that was bed ridden and on hospice. Another Linda fell out of bed and broke her hip and wasn’t found until the next morning. A male resident on memory care side was known by staff and the administrator to be sexually assaulting women residents. Nothing was done (at least not when I was there). Most residents were sat in front of the TV ALL day in an uncomfortable wheelchair. Second and third shift staff would leave for hours or go to the side of the building with the couches and sleep. Or, go out in their cars and smoke. Another resident requested to go to the hospital because he wasn’t feeling well. One of the caretakers, “Jamilia” denied him access to an ambulance and ER care because she said “he does this.”
When I spoke with Kristen, she went back to the workers and told them I said all of this and did NOTHING about it. NOTHING.
Another worker, a cook, kicked a resident, grabbed his shoulders and yelled HEY in his face. Administration was not in the building so I call the police. Yes, she was fired immediately, but she came back and vandalized my car and nothing was ever done about that.
Encore senior living, their administration team, and their HR department should ALL be in jail! Every single last one of them!!
I forgot to mention, there was a male resident with a bed sore so bad, we could see his bone. “Kedzey” did show the nurse and the nurse did send him out to the hospital days later after originally seeing it (already down to the bone) because she felt it wasn’t an issue because he was paralyzed and “couldn’t feel pain.”
HEPA
Management is also liable for their “see no evil” approach that allows this kind of thing to happen.