SAPD: Nursing assistant accused of exploiting 79-year-old woman at nursing home with Alzheimer’s

Nate Kotisso, Digital Journalist
Katrina Webber, Reporter

Destiny Lashell Houston, 36, is facing 3 felonies, records show

San Antonio police arrested Destiny Houston, who investigators believe paid for personal items with a debit card that belonged to a 79-year-old resident at a North Side nursing home. (Bexar County Sheriff's Office)

SAN ANTONIO – Police arrested a certified nursing assistant who investigators believe paid for personal items with a debit card that belonged to a 79-year-old resident at a North Side nursing home.

The San Antonio Police Department took Destiny Lashell Houston, 36, into custody Tuesday afternoon on the following charges, which are all considered third-degree felonies:

• Exploitation of an elderly individual
• Abuse of a credit card or debit card belonging to an elderly individual
• Fraudulent use or possession of items belonging to an elderly individual

At the time of the alleged crimes, police said Houston worked directly with the victim as a certified nursing assistant at The Forum at Lincoln Heights, a nursing home located in the 300 block of Nottingham Drive.

‘Numerous purchases’

Authorities said the victim, who was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease in 2024, moved into the facility’s mental care unit in June 2025. Due to the diagnosis, the victim’s daughter is in charge of her mother’s financial accounts in order to pay bills and monitor expenses, the affidavit states.

In August 2025, the victim’s daughter checked one of the accounts and noticed “numerous purchases” were made with the victim’s debit card over multiple days, according to police. SAPD said one purchase was made at a vending machine inside the nursing home’s employee lounge. 

After checking her mother’s wallet, investigators said her daughter learned that the victim’s cards were missing and subsequently filed a report with SAPD.

Suspect denies allegations

Detectives said they obtained surveillance videos and photos of Houston from several stores where the debit card was used. Investigators showed the pictures to supervisors at the nursing home, who identified Houston as the woman in those photos.

In an interview with police, Houston admitted that she was the person in the surveillance photos.

However, she denied using the victim’s debit card. According to the affidavit, Houston told police that the card she used was a “gift card” she found on the floor at the nursing home.

Houston bonded out of jail just after 10 p.m. Tuesday, according to jail records. She is expected to make her next court appearance on Aug. 24. 

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SAPD: Nursing assistant accused of exploiting 79-year-old woman at nursing home with Alzheimer’s 

Forest Grove police investigate nursing assistant in multivictim elder exploitation

By Nick LaMora 

Forest Grove police say they have charged Willow McCullough for numerous financial abuse-related charges involving several elderly victims. (File photo)

A certified nursing assistant who worked in multiple senior care facilities across Washington County is facing a slate of felony charges for allegedly financially exploiting elderly residents, according to police.

The Forest Grove Police Department, working with the Beaverton Police Department and the Washington County District Attorney’s Office, is investigating Willow McCullough, who authorities say is tied to multiple cases of financial abuse.

Investigators say the alleged conduct spans several assisted-living and senior care facilities in Forest Grove, Beaverton and the surrounding area, where McCullough was employed as a nursing assistant.

Court records show at least six victims have been identified, and authorities believe there may be more.

McCullough faces 22 charges across two separate cases, including six counts of identity theft, three counts of aggravated identity theft and six counts of fraudulent use of a credit card, as well as three counts of first-degree theft, one count of aggravated first-degree theft and three counts of second-degree theft.

Officials are asking anyone who believes they or a family member may have been affected to come forward. Reports can be made through Oregon’s Adult Protective Services hotline at 855-503-7233 or by contacting local law enforcement. Forest Grove investigators can be reached at 503-992-3260.

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Forest Grove police investigate nursing assistant in multivictim elder exploitation 

Sentencing set for nursing assistant in VA hospital killings

The Louis A. Johnson VA Medical Center in Clarksburg, W.Va., is seen on Tuesday, July 14, 2020. (Source: AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — A former nursing assistant who has pleaded guilty to intentionally killing seven people with fatal doses of insulin at a West Virginia veterans hospital is scheduled to be sentenced in February.

News outlets report that a judge has scheduled Reta Mays' sentencing for Feb. 18 and Feb. 19 in Clarksburg. Mays pleaded guilty earlier this year to intentionally killing seven patients with wrongful insulin injections.

Mays faces up to life in prison for each of seven counts of second-degree murder. Mays admitted at a plea hearing to purposely killing the veterans, injecting them with unprescribed insulin while she worked overnight shifts between 2017 and 2018.

 

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Sentencing set for nursing assistant in VA hospital killings

Nursing Home Employee Caught Punching 98-Year-Old Dementia Patient

By Elizabeth Nelson

A nursing assistant has lost her certification and her job after being caught abusing an elderly patient.

The abuse occurred at HCR ManorCare in Naples, Florida. The nursing assistant, Yverose Neus, was seen by a coworker punching a 98-year-old dementia patient.

The coworker who saw her said she “swung her closed fists and hit the back of Patient E.H.’s head twice. Patient E.H. attempted to stop Neus from hitting her by holding her hands up defensively.”

Luckily, the other employee stood up for the elderly woman and reported Neus’s behavior. Following the incident, Neus was fired and had her nursing assistant certification taken away. She’s held the certification for more than 20 years.

Sadly, it is not common for elderly people in care homes to be abused by their caretakers. Their lack of physical strength and the ability to speak up for themselves makes them especially vulnerable.

If you have any reason to believe that an elderly person may be being abused, please do not hesitate to speak up, either to the victim’s family, to someone else in charge of their care, or to local police if need be. No one deserves to be treated like this, least of all the most helpless and frail of our communities. We must stand by those who are vulnerable and protect them from harm

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Nursing Home Employee Caught Punching 98-Year-Old Dementia Patient

Treasure Coast Nursing Assistant Accused of Sexually Assaulting Elderly Woman

by Sabrina Lolo

A 25-year-old certified nursing assistant was arrested Monday for reportedly sexually assaulting an elderly woman at a nursing home.

Christopher Alan Lacau, of Vero Beach, is facing three counts of lewd and lascivious battery on an elderly person, according to the Indian River County Sheriff's Office.

Lacau forced the woman to perform oral sex three times between Dec. 16 and Dec. 20, 2019, according to the sheriff's office. The woman is wheelchair-bound and fully paralyzed from the waist down due to being a victim of attempted murder. She was also diagnosed with PTSD because of the incident.

The woman told deputies she didn't report it right away because of Lacau's physical size and her past experiences with domestic violence.

The Department of Children and Families was later contacted and Lacau was suspended, per policy procedure, the sheriff's office said. He had been working at the facility since February 2019 and had no previous complaints against him.

When detectives interviewed Lacau, he became emotional and told them it was all consensual, according to the sheriff's office. However, the woman said everything was forced.

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Treasure Coast Nursing Assistant Accused of Sexually Assaulting Elderly Woman

Family sets up hidden camera in nursing home, catches man sexually assaulting patient

SEATTLE (KIRO/CNN) - A man is behind bars after authorities say he raped a disabled woman in a nursing home where he worked.

A hidden camera caught a nursing assistant sexually assaulting
a woman multiple times in Seattle. Nshimiyiana Hamzat is
charged with second degree rape. (Source: Family/KIRO/CNN)

According to court documents, 29-year-old Nshimiyiana Hamzat, nursing assistant at Foss Home and Village Nursing Home in north Seattle, was caught on a hidden camera sexually assaulting the victim more than once.

The woman's family says they hid the camera that looks like a phone charger in the room.
Hamzat is charged with second degree rape.

"I asked him what you are doing to me? He said to me back, 'I'm trying to help you, I'm trying to clean you," the victim said, who did not want to give her name.

She described feeling shame, and because of that, she did not immediately tell her family.

"I was feeling that nobody would help me,” the victim said.

Once she told her family, her brother bought the hidden camera and did not tell his sister about his plan, which made him nervous.

He was worried if the suspect found the hidden camera, he might hurt his sister even more.

He said the video proof made him lose his appetite.

"I was at the same time happy, because I catch him but I'm going sick - I can't eat nothing,” the victim’s brother said.

Hamzat, who the state says owns another adult care home himself in Bothell, Wash. where operations have since been suspended, remains jailed.

The woman's brother said he wants transparency and action from the facility.

Leadership at Foss Home and Village would not talk on camera about the allegations but said Hamzat was suspended.

The victim says Hamzat should be in jail.

According to Seattle media, there is another investigation involving another sexual assault at the same facility.

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Family sets up hidden camera in nursing home, catches man sexually assaulting patient

Sauk Centre CNA charged in exploiting of clients at assisted living home

SAUK CENTRE — A nursing assistant took $980 belonging to a Getty Street Assisted Living resident, according to an investigation by the Minnesota Department of Health and a Stearns County Statement of Probable Cause. 

Amelia Story, 31, has been charged with one felony count on suspicion of fraudulent transactions with a debit card. 

Story is not named in the April Department of Health report, but the details of the incident are the same in court documents and Department of Health documents. 

Both describe a Getty Street Assisted Living staff person who used a client's debit card twice in October 2017. According to the Department of Health, the staffer also borrowed $20 from another client.

"Based on a preponderance of evidence, financial exploitation occurred," according to the public Office of Health Facility Complaints Investigative Report.

The first client reported a missing debit card to the assisted living Administrator Mary Jo Marthaler in November 2017. Marthaler canceled the card, asked for a financial statement and called police about the matter, according to the state report. 

"I helped investigate it," Marthaler said Wednesday.

She said she also fired Story after police found footage of the Sauk Centre woman at the ATM at times that aligned with the client's bank statement. 

Story told police the client "wanted her to go to Walmart to purchase some things for him and he gave her his PIN to do this," according to court documents. "The defendant stated that instead of going to Walmart, she went to Holiday and withdrew cash on both dates on her way home from work. The defendant stated that she needed the money to buy groceries for her family."

After she was arrested, a second Getty Street Assisted Living client told Marthaler that client had loaned Story $20. That client shared a note from Story seeking $20 to feed her kids and promising to repay $25 the following week, according to the Department of Health report.

"The administrator (Marthaler) said a few days later s/he discovered a note under his/her door from (Story) with $20 in it repaying Client #2 the $20 while denying s/he every borrowed $20 from Client #2," according to the Department of Health documents, which obscured the names and genders of people mentioned. 

Story is still listed in the Minnesota Nursing Assistant Registry with a license that expires in October 2019. There's a note in the online registry that Story "has a substantiated finding of abuse, neglect and/or misappropriation of property."

In April, Story pleaded not guilty to the charge in Stearns County court, according to the court record. She has a settlement conference scheduled for the end of the month. 

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Sauk Centre CNA charged in exploiting of clients at assisted living home