Collen Sayegh (Blair County Prison).
A Pennsylvania woman will spend up to eight years behind bars after she allowed her wheelchair-bound mother to wallow in her own feces and urine and develop sepsis, which led to her death.
Colleen Sayegh, 38, pleaded guilty on Tuesday to negligent care of a dependent person, a felony of the first degree, and was sentenced to 15 months to eight years in prison, Blair County Prosecutor Peter Weeks told Law&Crime. Authorities uncovered the horrific case after receiving a 911 call on July 19, 2022, about the victim, who was suffering from sores that would not heal, a probable cause arrest affidavit said.
Officers found the woman at a home in the 300 block of Mill Hill Road in Woodbury Township barely responsive. She suffered from numerous open wounds including one on her back side that was the size of a fist, the complaint stated. The victim also was dehydrated and had “extremely low” blood pressure. She “had open wounds covering her entire right side that were foul smelling and indicated she had not been moved.” Paramedics also noted her pajama gown and diaper were soiled in feces and urine.
She died on July 21, 2022.
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Cops say she became wheelchair-bound and had weakness in her right side after a stroke in February 2021.
Investigators conducted a search of the home and found it to be in “deplorable conditions with animal feces covering the floor and a foul odor,” cops wrote.
Troopers with the Pennsylvania State Police interviewed Sayegh, who said her mother was in a nursing home for about three months after her stroke but “insisted” on coming home. She said she felt as if she had her mother”s situation under control and would take shifts with others caring for her. Sayegh claimed the sores on the victim’s backside were about a week old and were healing, but the medical examiner opined they were older. She tried to treat the sores but they seemed to be getting worse and her mother began “wailing” in pain and unable to communicate other than answering “yes” or “no” questions.
Sayegh admitted that she had not bathed her mother, who also suffered from diabetes, in months and had not taken her to a doctor in over a year.
An autopsy determined the victim died of sepsis that was caused by a skin infection, likely coming from the feces and urine she was lying in, the complaint said. Had Sayegh bathed her mom and washed off the urine and feces, her chances of survival would have been much higher, the medical examiner stated.
At her sentencing, Sayegh told a judge her mother “kept refusing treatment,” a courtroom report by the Altoona Mirror said. Judge Jackie Atherton Bernard admonished the defendant, saying “we don’t even treat animals like this.”
“Your actions are selfish,” Bernard reportedly said. “You chose to take care of yourself and your own medical needs while you left your mother to rot.”
Added Weeks in a statement: “This prosecution would not have been possible without the investigative efforts of the Pennsylvania State Police and the cooperation provided by Blair Senior Services, Inc., the paramedics, and the decedent’s treating doctors and nurses. While nothing can erase the suffering of the decedent [due] to the neglect of her care, we are grateful for everyone’s efforts to hold the defendant accountable.”
