Caregiver charged in death of woman who wandered from assisted living center and died in snow

BATH TOWNSHIP, Mich. (AP) — A caregiver at a Michigan assisted living center has been charged with neglecting an 82-year-old woman who wandered outside and was found dead under snow last December.

“Caregivers have a responsibility under the law to act in the face of grave danger to a vulnerable person in their care,” Attorney General Dana Nessel said in a news release.

Colleen Kelly O’Connor, 58, appeared Monday in a Clinton County court on a charge of second-degree vulnerable adult abuse.

Lois Cary was a resident at Vista Springs Timber Ridge Village, an assisted living facility, northeast of Lansing. O’Connor twice saw her try to go outside while temperatures were in single digits and snow was drifting, the attorney general’s office said.

“A snowplow driver found the victim in the parking lot around 7 a.m., partially buried in snow,” the state said.

Cary died of hypothermia.

“We will be aggressively fighting these charges,” the Lansing State Journal quoted O’Connor’s attorney, Michael Oakes, as saying. “She worked for that company for years without incident prior to this lady walking out of this facility, and she continued working there for almost a year after that.”