COLUMBIA, S.C. – Authorities say the caregivers of an 82-year-old woman allowed her to sit in the same chair, not moving for six months, until she died earlier this year.
Prosecutors are deciding whether to charge Barbara Beam's caregivers in her Jan. 2 death at her house in Greenville. She lived with her sister and nephew.
A police report says Beam's sister told officers the woman hadn't moved out of the chair in six months. Officers noted indentions on the back of Beam's legs near her knees and what appeared to be body fluids staining the chair.
The report says the home's smell was so bad that firefighters set up a fan at the door.
The report doesn't give the caretakers' names. Beam's home phone is disconnected.
The coroner's office classified the manner of death as homicide by neglect.
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