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QUINCY, Mass. -- A young nursing assistant is accused by prosecutors of a horrific case of elder abuse in which she allegedly slapped or jumped on four elderly Alzheimer’s patients.
Kara A. Murphy (pictured), 23, of Quincy is under house arrest after pleading not guilty August 14 to seven counts of assault and battery on a person over 60.
The women were attacked last Saturday during Murphy’s shift at the Atrium at Faxon Woods in Quincy, according to a police report.
Murphy, a certified nursing assistant, is accused of grabbing an 89-year-old woman by the jaw during a bowel movement and forcing her onto a toilet, the Boston Herald reported.
“I should make her eat it,” Murphy told a co-worker according to the police report cited by the Herald.
In another incident, Murphy allegedly bounced up and down on the lap of a wheelchair-bound, 96-year-old woman.
“The victims in these types of cases are among the most vulnerable,” said Norfolk District Attorney William R. Keating.
Murphy is also charged with slapping a 92-year-old woman who was in a wheelchair and hitting a 79-year-old woman on the shoulder.
Murphy was arrested at her home Thursday night after a co-worker alerted police.
Murphy faces 21 years in prison if found guilty. Neither Murphy nor her attorney could not be reached by the newspaper for comment.
Beth Haller, Ph.D., is Co-Director of the Global Alliance for Disability in Media and Entertainment (www.gadim.org). A former print journalist, she is a member of the Advisory Board for the National Center on Disability and Journalism (https://ncdj.org/). Haller is Professor Emerita in the Department of Mass Communication at Towson University in Maryland, USA. Haller is co-editor of the 2020 "Routledge Companion to Disability and Media" (with Gerard Goggin of University of Sydney & Katie Ellis of Curtin University, Australia). She is author of "Representing Disability in an Ableist World: Essays on Mass Media" (Advocado Press, 2010) and the author/editor of Byline of Hope: Collected Newspaper and Magazine Writing of Helen Keller (Advocado Press, 2015). She has been researching disability representation in mass media for 30+ years. She is adjunct faculty in the Disability Studies programs at the City University of New York (CUNY) and the University of Texas-Arlington.
From WCVB-TV in Boston:
