Dunlap police charge woman with abusing 74-year-old

Christie Wilson
Christie Wilson

Police in Dunlap, Tenn., have charged a local woman with abusing a 74-year-old woman after police and medical workers found injuries all over the alleged victim's body during an ambulance call last week.

Christie Linn Wilson, 50, of Dunlap, is charged with elder abuse in Sequatchie County, Dunlap Police Department Chief Clint Huth said on Thursday.

"The officers actually got a call to assist Puckett EMS. Puckett got the original call that a 74-year-old female needed medical attention," Huth said of the March 15 call. "When we get there, this 74-year-old lady was laying in the bed and she's wanting to go to the ER."

After a few minutes, officers' suspicions were raised by some visible bruises, and the woman was taken to Erlanger Sequatchie Valley in Dunlap, where medical officials and police found "bruises up and down her back, arms, legs, sides, all over the place," Huth said. "She makes the comment that [Wilson] had been hitting her."

The bruises appeared to have occurred at different times and were in various stages of healing, he said.

"Some were more recent and some were probably 3-4 weeks old," Huth said.

Huth said the elderly woman had been staying in a Fort Oglethorpe, Ga., nursing home until she and Wilson moved to the home in Dunlap about a month ago. Huth didn't know where Wilson lived before moving to Dunlap.

The woman has recovered from her injuries and is living in another facility, he said.

The Dunlap case is the second elder abuse case in the 12th Judicial District in recent weeks and the fourth in the tristate area since early February.

Rhea County investigators on Feb. 8 charged 26-year-old Matthew J. Savage Jr. with two counts of vulnerable adult abuse and/or neglect in connection with an older couple being found with only the clothes on their backs after being left for four days in a vacant mobile home near Spring City. The charge against Savage stems from a new law that went into effect Jan. 1.

In Cherokee County, Ala., Michele Curry, 42, Kacey Allen, 28, and Shawna Rogers, 26, were each charged with second-degree elder abuse/neglect on indictments issued Feb. 15 after an 84-year-old bedridden woman was found with more than 100 ant bites. The woman was in the care of the three women at Cherokee County Health Rehabilitation Center back in September.

And last week in Walker County, Ga., Jeremy Ryan Gladden, 27, and Heather Ann McCoy, 31, were charged with elder abuse after deputies found a 76-year-old woman with a black eye, injured wrist and bruised shoulder.

Contact staff writer Ben Benton at bbenton@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6569.

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