Aiken shuts down elderly home

Authorities arrest three on neglect charges

Web posted September 15, 2000

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By Greg Rickabaugh
South Carolina Bureau

AIKEN - Bill Brown should have known something was wrong when the Ranson family asked for advance notice before he came to pick up his mother-in-law from their residential care home in Aiken.

The Ransons said they wanted to have the elderly woman dressed and fixed up so he didn't have to wait. Afflicted with Alzheimer's disease, she was unable to tell her family it wasn't so.

But the truth came out a week ago, when a social worker called to say she had discovered Mr. Brown's mother-in-law and several other women living in a feces-ridden shack that stunk of urine. The women were wearing diapers and sleeping on air mattresses. They were residing in an unlicensed building a quarter-mile from the main facility on a dirt road accessible only by an all-terrain vehicle.

It was not the Browns' idea of a nursing home or anyone else's.

RON COCKERILLE/STAFF

After a major investigation by state and local officials, the Ranson's operation was effectively shut down this week and the family was arrested on charges of elderly neglect. Officials took seven elderly clients into emergency protective custody, returning five to their families and moving two to other residential care homes, Aiken County Sheriff Howard Sellers said.

``It is more than saddening - it is sickening,'' Sheriff Sellers said. ``The circumstances under which these elderly people were held is atrocious. It's a real travesty, and I've never seen anything worse.''

Clifford Ranson, 59; Alice J. Ranson, 53; and Jared Ranson, 34, all of 1037 Brookhaven Drive, Aiken, were arrested Thursday and each charged with two counts of elderly neglect. More charges are expected, and Sheriff Sellers is asking area residents to contact his office if they know of other families who may have had relatives who lived there previously.

After years of suspicions, state officials pulled a surprise visit at Ranson's Community Care Home on Sept. 8 and discovered the conditions. Elderly women who suffered from Alzheimer's disease and other illnesses were discovered in a run-down home that was not licensed for patients. Officials said the Ranson family was collecting large sums of monthly payments from the patients' Social Security checks, ostensibly to pay for their care.

According to state officials, the home was licensed for eight people at 1043 Brookhaven Drive, but the Ranson family cared for more than a dozen.

The South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control had cited the home before for unlicensed activity. But on those occasions, investigators found the residents housed in the licensed facility. There was no indication that others were stashed elsewhere.

That changed a week ago.

``We finally caught them on the 8th,'' DHEC spokesman Jerry Paul said. ``Basically, he (Mr. Ranson) was running a shell game, .ƒ.ƒ. moving people between the licensed facility and the unlicensed locations.''

DHEC immediately contacted officials with the Department of Social Services, the agency responsible for investigating abuse and neglect.

From there, DSS employee Delecia Capers contacted family members and asked them to pick up their relatives.

Mr. Brown, son-in-law of resident Carmen Yolanda Brou, called the conditions ``filthy.'' And for the first time, he said, he and his wife realized that conditions they had attributed to her mother's illness must have come from something else. She had lost 90 pounds in the past two years. She had bruises sometimes and bedsores.

``I guarantee you that none of these people would put any of their relatives in a place like that,'' Mr. Brown said Thursday. ``They put diapers on them and let them sit there all day, watching a TV, and then they put them to bed.''

On Friday, Clifford Ranson didn't want to show the Browns the home where his mother-in-law had stayed, but he reluctantly unlocked the door when Mr. Brown threatened to sue.

``The first thing we saw was a pile of garbage about 4 or 5 feet high,'' Mr. Brown said. ``The smell of urine was everywhere. He showed us the room that my mother-in-law had been staying in, and there was a hole in the roof.''

As he walked into the room, Mr. Brown saw four or five elderly women sitting around. They didn't say a word and acted as if they were in a stupor, he said. It was dark in the unlighted room with only a TV illuminating the area, Mr. Brown said. There was no sign of air conditioning.

Tears streamed down Sandra Belcher's face when she saw the shack and learned that's where her 76-year-old mother was taken on Sundays after she drove away.

Mrs. Brou now is living in North Augusta with her other daughter, Nancy Brown, and her son-in-law, Bill Brown. Mr. Brown actually initiated the investigation by the Aiken County sheriff's office by filing a report Tuesday.

DSS officials did not notify law enforcement last week, he said.

DSS spokesman Jerry Adams took responsibility for that omission Thursday and said his agency is reviewing procedures.

``The bottom line is we screwed up,'' he said. ``We should have called the sheriff's office on Friday.''

There is evidence the Ransons cleaned up the weekend before state and local investigators arrived, authorities said.

The Ransons remained in the Aiken County Detention Center on Thursday night, each on a $50,000 bond.

Reach Greg Rickabaugh at (803) 279-6895.

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