At age 84 in 2008, the Independence woman was a presence. She stood 5 feet 10, a railroad engineer’s widow with a sweep of coiffed white hair, a thin cigarette poised in her fingers and a gossipy tongue that, to the dismay even of her family, could turn as cold as it was more often kind.
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| Joyce Ciaccetti |
But in the summer of 2008, she got one: Linda Gayle Scaife, a neighbor from decades ago who had returned to the Kansas City area, knocked on Louise Giaccetti’s door and suddenly became what the widow called her “new best friend.” Giaccetti couldn’t have been more wrong. Over the next three years, until her death, her family ties were destroyed. She lost her home and most of her life savings.
As revealed by family and court documents, the deceit and theft perpetrated by Linda Scaife could easily serve as a cautionary tale for all those concerned about financial exploitation of the rapidly growing number of elderly Americans.
“The first thing I can tell you is that anyone who tells you they know how much of this is going on is blowing smoke. We don’t know,” said Doug Shadel, an expert on financial fraud with AARP in Washington state. “The reason we don’t know is that people are embarrassed to admit they’ve been taken. There is a lot of suffering in silence.”
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Exploitation of Elderly Woman by a "Friend" is Another Chapter in an Increasingly Common Story
She needed a friend, but picked the wrong one.
ReplyDeleteThis is how the perps pick their victims.....looking for people who are lonely.
ReplyDeleteIt's so sad because people do get lonely and when they are, they let their guard down.
ReplyDelete