By , Dorothy Tucker
Cathy Solway remembers a promise made with her brother to take care of their aging parents when their health began to decline and they moved into assisted living: "We're gonna take care of mom and dad as a team. We're gonna do this together."
But then she made a discovery that changed everything.
"I left the bank, sat in my car and about had a complete breakdown from what I was seeing. A lot less money than I knew should have been in that account," she said.
Growing up
Cathy Solway and her brother, Robert Carlson, grew up in suburban Streamwood.
"We had a pretty great childhood. My brother and I were pretty happy growing up," she said.
Their parents, William and Caroline Carlson, got married in 1958 and raised their family in a modest house.
"My mom was a stay-at-home mom. She was the room mom. My dad worked hard, but they never missed anything that we were involved in," said Solway.
William Carlson served in the Air Force as a young man. After his stint in the military, he worked for United Airlines, the FAA and the Village of Streamwood. He worked practically his entire life, his daughter said.
"He was getting a decent amount of retirement benefits," said Solway.
But then came the official word her parents' health was declining.
"They both were just not able to take care of themselves," she said. "They both were in various stages of Alzheimer's. They were diagnosed in 2017 to 2019."
In 2022 the family decided to move them into assisted living, first at an Illinois facility and then into a Wisconsin facility, closer to her brother Robert.
"And my brother was like, 'You know, I'm going to make sure that their finances are taken care of and, you know, we'll make sure that their bills are paid for the house.' They still had the house that they had lived in," Solway said.
Solway knew her parents had enough money to cover those bills plus the assisted living facilities' fees.
"I knew my dad was very good at saving money. He was very careful with his money," she said.
But her brother had surprise news.
"He just suddenly told me in March of '23 'We need to sell their house,'" she recalled. "To be told that there's no money left was a little odd."
The discovery
After asking her brother questions and getting vague answers, Cathy said she went to the bank to check the account balance.
"When they went into assisted living [in 2022] they had over $165,000 in their savings account," she explained. "When I saw how much was left in the account, I felt that was like a gut punch."
With that initial balance, plus their parents' monthly social security and benefit payments and minus the living expenses, Solway estimated the remaining balance should still have been a large amount.
"I'm doing the math in my head. At some point, there should be around $80,000 in there," she said. But the actual balance was much lower. "There was only about $9,200."
She looked through other statements, and said she spotted multiple large deposits, several withdrawals and checks for thousands of dollars each.
"This is what would happen: $30,000 would go in and about $30,000 would go out, but not in one lump sum," she said.
She, along with her mother, called the three financial institutions that held her father's retirement accounts and found in the one that held her father's 401k there was a zero balance. She found just $600 left in another one.
"Over $110,000 and that was just from those three accounts," she said.
Within months, her brother had sold the family home in Streamwood for around $160,000. That money was supposed to be used for their parents' living expenses.
Her brother had been designated power-of-attorney for the parents in early 2023, an arrangement made as part of a trust prior to the Carlsons' failing health. But by the end of the year, Solway was legally challenging his power over their financial affairs.
The court case and admissions
Solway and her attorney filed a petition to remove her brother as power-of-attorney and trustee of the family trust in December 2023 in Walworth County Civil Court.
Through the probate case, she was able to get access to detailed financial records and audio recordings from financial institutions.
"When we subpoenaed all the audio records, there were multiple times that he called and made withdrawals. They were all my brother," she said.
She said her brother called and told representatives he was his father, William Carlson. And in a deposition taken for the case he admitted the voice on the recordings was "Mine."
Some of the checks seen in the statements were made out to her brother's business, Looking Good Turf. Some had Robert Carlson's signature, but many appeared to be signed by his father.
"There were checks through '23 written for his landscaping company," Solway said. "Writing thousands of dollars of checks to his landscaping company and signing my dad's name to it."
And in his deposition, when Robert Carlson was asked who signed his parents' names on documents and checks, he answered, "Me."
By July 2024 a Walworth County judge removed Robert Carlson as power-of-attorney and trustee over the family trust. The ruling also ordered him to repay the trust more than $430,000.
Elder Financial Exploitation
The Illinois Department on Aging, or IDoA, released new data from 2025 showing financial exploitation is the leading type of abuse against people over the age of 60, and adults with a disability of any age.
Twenty-five percent of elder abuse is financial exploitation. and the 6,000 cases in 2025 are an increase from 4,500 in 2004.
"This is due to the growth of the program, but it's also due to increased prevalence of exploitation among the population," said Brian Pastor, division manager of Advocacy and Prevention Services in the IDoA.
He said the abuser is often close to the victim.
"They're a family member. They're a trusted individual," he explained.
The agency's data shows most often, in 34% of all cases, the abuse is committed by the victim's adult child, especially when it comes to money.
"They really do feel often in these circumstances that they are entitled to these funds because they're going to get them eventually. Which may or may not be true," Pastor said.
Solway said she doesn't expect her brother will ever repay the money. She has received compensation from at least one of the financial institutions.
Wintrust, the Carlsons' bank, told CBS News Chicago in a statement, that the judicial order did not pertain to it, so it will not repay any of the money Robert Carlson withdrew via checks to his business or for other bills.
CBS News Chicago tried to contact Robert Carlson in Wisconsin, but could not find him. Neighbors told us they thought he had moved to Florida.
Solway advised others to make sure more than one person has power-of-attorney privileges. Her parents both passed away within a few weeks of each other in 2025.
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Streamwood woman says brother took more than $430,000 from elderly parents' financial accounts
