I-Team: Killings just the beginning of problems at Houston nursing home

HOUSTON – The crime was a shocking as it was brutal.

Two nursing home residents were bludgeoned to death inside their room at Lexington Place Nursing Home in Houston.

Guillermo Correa, the victims’ roommate was charged with beating the men, Primitivo Lopez and Antonio Acosta, to death with a wheelchair armrest.

“He told them that this guy, he’s crazy, he can kill people. He’s going to kill everybody one of these days,” recalled Acosta’s daughter, Irma Chavez.

Chavez says her family repeatedly requested a room change because her father, a stroke survivor, feared Correa.

But, Chavez says, those concerns fell on deaf ears.

“My father didn’t deserve this,” said Chavez through her tears.

A state inspection after the murders found serious problems at the nursing home. That included four issues that inspectors said placed residents in immediate jeopardy of harm or death.

After the murders, Lexington Place changed its name to Brookhollow Heights Transitional Care Center. While the name changed, state records show that the owners stayed the same.

Records obtained by the KHOU 11 News I-Team show the problems continued.

In January, 2015, inspectors found that a severely mentally impaired man was put in a room with a convicted violent sexual predator who was part of the state’s civil commitment program.

Investigators say the predator struck again, sexually abusing that roommate.

Inspectors again cited the nursing home for placing residents in immediate jeopardy.

Then, in March 2015, inspectors cited another immediate jeopardy situation. That time it was for failing to write and use policies that forbid mistreatment, neglect and abuse or residents.

In August, Brookhollow Heights was cited for failing to thoroughly investigate and report to the state that a resident was found on the floor bloody, foaming at the mouth and unable to explain what happened.

Amanda Fredriksen, associate state director of AARP Texas believes residents of the nursing home deserve better.

She says Texas has a lax history of enforcement against nursing homes and needs to do better to protect residents.

“The state has the authority now to step in, they just need to do it,” Fredriksen told the I-Team.

Brookhollow Heights is now on a federal list of nursing homes with a pattern of persistent, serious problems.  (Continue Reading)

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I-Team: Killings just the beginning of problems at Houston nursing home