Walker County: Healthcare worker gets 3 life sentences

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

photo Tom Franklin Scroggins Healthcare worker charged with raping an 82-year old patient.

A healthcare worker charged with sexually abusing his 82-year-old male Alzheimer's patient was sentenced to three life sentences this week.

Tom Scroggins, 36, pleaded guilty to two counts of aggravated sodomy, one count of aggravated sexual battery and sexual battery in Walker County Superior Court on Monday.

Scroggins was charged in December after the family of Doyle "Bud" Wilkinson captured Scroggins abusing the man on a camera secretly placed in the home.

Wilkinson, who died in February, was a a veteran and had been bedridden with Alzheimer's when Scroggins was taking care of him.

Scroggins worked for both ResCare, a home service that contracts with the local Veterans Affairs department, and for Hutcheson Medical Center.