D
Da Ji
Guest
May 29, 2010
Woman confined for months
<!-- by line --> <!-- end by line --> INDIANAPOLIS - THREE people kept a 65-year-old woman with dementia locked in a tiny room with a urine-soaked mattress to sleep on and a dog bowl to drink from so that they could live off her monthly government pension cheques, authorities said. A police officer sent to the suspects' home in Anderson on Thursday found Anna Turner locked in the 2m by 2.5m storage room, police said in a probable cause affidavit.
Luigi A. Amalfitano, 45, told the officer that he didn't know Turner and that she wasn't at the home. But the officer conducted a sweep of the home and found Turner in a room that was 'barely fit to contain an animal, let alone a human being', according to police. Amalfitano, his 20-year-old son Louis A. Amalfitano, and his son's girlfriend 21-year-old Stephanie Lynette Cole were arrested and face preliminary charges of exploitation of an endangered adult. The Amalfitanos also face preliminary charges of confinement and battery, and Cole faces a preliminary charge of aiding confinement.
The three remained jailed on Friday on US$100,000 (S$140,000) cash bonds. A Madison County Jail officer said he did not know whether any had an attorney. Anderson police Detective Mitch Carroll said Ms Turner suffered severe physical abuse at the house and was gaunt, malnourished and had a black eye and large bruises on her arm and body when she was taken from the home. He said she was hospitalised but her injuries were not life-threatening. -- AP
