Elderly Couple's Tale of Abuse Not so Uncommon

James and Etta Jennings moved to the Forest Hill neighborhood of Richmond in 1959. They were young - just married - and the first owners of their red brick ranch house. They had children and then grandchildren, who gathered in their family room for holidays and learned to swim in their backyard pool.

But when their granddaughter, Jeannie Beidler, approached the home on July 27, 2010, she was confronted by a grim reality. Paramedics, police and Adult Protective Services social workers were on the scene.

"You could smell the stench of urine and feces," she says, standing at the foot of the driveway. "From this point, we already knew what we were about to walk into."

The Jennings' son, Beidler's uncle, was supposed to be caring for them, but it became clear very quickly that something had gone horribly wrong. The Jennings were living without running water or even a fan. James was confined to a chair. His blood pressure was high and he was fading in and out of consciousness. Etta was living on a broken bed crawling with maggots.

Beidler was overwhelmed.

"To think how could this have happened to her? I can't think of a sadder moment in my life or a heavier moment in my life than that," she says.

It's hard to imagine how a family home could sour and rot as the Jennings' had, or how somebody could watch two elderly parents wasting away.

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Elderly Couple's Tale of Abuse Not So Uncommon