CASPER — A 50-year-old woman working at a local nursing care facility is accused of tying a resident’s head to a bed to keep her from moving overnight.
Court records made available Thursday show an arrest warrant has been issued for Julie Ann Cross on charges of abuse of a vulnerable adult and false imprisonment for actions during the early morning hours of July 14.
A police affidavit says a Casper Police Department officer responded to a NOWCAP Services facility in the 300 block of North Walsh Avenue that morning.
The officer spoke to the facility’s community services director, who stated that his employee, Cross, had tied a resident’s head to a bed using a scarf, according to the affidavit.
The officer also interviewed two morning care workers separately about what they witnessed.
One said when she went into the patient’s room with her coworker on morning rounds, she tried to roll the female resident over to pull up her pants and noticed that she could not roll her over, the affidavit says.
“(The worker) noticed that (the patient’s) hair was on the pillow tied like some sort of ponytail with a blue scarf,” the affidavit states. The worker“stated she attempted to untie the scarf from (the patient’s) hair but could not get at it.”
At that point, Cross allegedly came into the room and attempted to push the worker to the side and reach for the scarf, according to the affidavit.
The worker asked Cross why she tied the woman with the scarf, and the worker told police that Cross replied, “It was to keep (the patient) from moving.”
Phone Interview
The affidavit states that Cross left the room and the colleague who had entered the room with the morning care worker spent five minutes getting the scarf untied from the patient’s hair. The worker told police she contacted a supervisor so they could file a report.
During her interview, the coworker who untied the scarf confirmed to police that the pair went into the patient’s room and she was going to assist the patient in getting up for the morning.
She said Cross came into the room and said the patient’s hair was “matted and smelt,” the affidavit says. Cross then asked if her hair was “tangled again on her bed as it had been getting tangled throughout the night.”
The coworker said she briefly left the room and came back to find her colleague trying to move the patient, and that’s when they noticed the patient’s hair was tied with a scarf to the bed.
She said her colleague could not untie the scarf, so she tried. That’s when Cross re-entered the room and her colleague advised Cross that they would finish getting the patient ready.
During an interview by phone, Cross reportedly told the officer that she was the solo worker on the night shift, the affidavit says.
Early on July 14, the patient was awake and tossing her head back and forth, Cross said, adding that the patient needed to be changed and her hair “smelt.” So, she tied it with one of the patient’s silky scarves into a ponytail and said that the “rest of the scarf was on the pillow.”
According to the affidavit, Cross said she checked on the patient later in the early morning hours and found the end of the scarf had “fallen and wrapped around the bed.”
She said she put the end of the scarf back on the bed next to the resident and during another check, it had not moved.
“Morning staff came in and she told them about the scarf and how it had gotten wrapped around the corner of the bed,” the affidavit states Cross told the officer. “She believes that (the patient) was tossing her head side-to-side and the scarf got wrapped around again.”
During his investigation July 14, the officer had the morning care worker show him how the scarf was physically tied to the bed.
The NOWCAP Services director also provided him with an “in-depth report on the incident and photographic evidence taken while the scarf was still tied to (the patient) and the bed.”
The director also told the officer that Cross was being contacted and told that “she was no longer on the work schedule.”
The intentional abuse, neglect or abandonment of a vulnerable adult charge is a felony that carries a penalty of up to 10 years in prison and a $10,000 fine. The false imprisonment charge is a misdemeanor that is punishable by up to one year in jail and a $1,000 fine.
Dale Killingbeck can be reached at dale@cowboystatedaily.com.
