A 72-year-old Lander area woman who was attacked and blinded Thanksgiving morning at Sage West Hospital in Lander has died.
Elaine Tillman had been life-flighted to Salt Lake City shortly after the brutal attack and died there Wednesday morning.
A 53-year-old Dubois man, Patrick Rose, remains in the Fremont County jail on a $250,000 cash-only bond. He is being held on aggravated assault charges.
An autopsy was performed in Salt Lake City on Thursday.
The Fremont County Attorney’s Office on Friday acknowledged in a statement it was aware of Tillman’s death.
“We are currently in contact with medical professionals in Utah and are reviewing more serious charging. As soon as we receive the out of state medical reports we will make a final charging determination,” the statement read.
According to media reports, a nurse was outside of Rose’s room when “he ran out of the room, rushed into the next room, and jumped on the elderly female patient before (the nurse) could react.”
Reasons for the attack are unknown but the Associated Press reported that Rose may have stopped taking medication
“People who take psychotropic medications and suffer from mental illness have a tendency to believe they don’t need to take the medication and then quit taking them, and then things go wrong from them,” Lander Circuit Court Judge Robert Denhardt said.
Rose told the judge he had a traumatic brain injury.
