A North Georgia home health care worker charged last week with sexually abusing his 82-year-old male patient had a prior battery charge on his record, police said.
Tom Scroggins, charged Dec. 22 with two counts of aggravated sodomy, one count of aggravated sexual battery and sexual battery in the abuse case, also was arrested in January 2009, a police incident report shows.
He was charged with simple battery after his 11-year-old son called 911, scared because his father pushed him to the ground, kneeled on his groin and threw his laptop, the report states.
And the family of Doyle “Bud” Wilkinson, the 82-year-old patient, wants to know why Scroggins’ employer, home health care service Rescare, didn’t investigate complaints of physical abuse that they reported after Scroggins made home visits.
“The three years we had Rescare, there have been continuous reports made,” said Wilkinson’s youngest daughter, Wilda Holladay. “Nobody should have went through what [my father] went through.”
Scroggins, 36, who worked for Rescare and for Hutcheson Medical Center, was arrested after Wilkinson’s family used a videocamera to catch Scroggins sexually abusing the elderly man, Rossville Police Chief Sid Adams said.
Pati Kelly, executive director for North Georgia Rescare, would not say if Scroggins was hired before the 2009 charge. Police believe he has worked for the company for at least a year.
“We can’t release that information,” Kelly said, adding that Rescare’s policy includes a background check when an employee is hired.
Hutcheson Medical Center officials also said a background check was conducted on Scroggins before he was hired to do contract work cleaning the hospital at night.
Beth Evans, a resident assistant district attorney with the Lookout Mountain Judicial Circuit, said she didn’t know whether Scroggins had been indicted after the 2009 charge. Rossville police officials also said they weren’t sure if Scroggins had been indicted on the 2009 charge.
Wilkinson’s family said they made several reports in November to Rescare to report physical injuries to Wilkinson after Scroggins would come to the house. Rescare was contracted for Wilkinson’s care through the local Veterans Affairs office.
“We thought [Scroggins] was just getting ugly with him or getting upset,” she said. “This family never, ever dreamed what he was going through.”
Holladay said her mother first called Rescare after she noticed that Wilkinson had a black eye and called again the next week after she saw a deep cut on his hand.
Each time her mother questioned Scroggins about the injuries, he explained that Wilkinson — who is bedridden with severe Alzheimer’s — was resistant to being treated and had caused the injuries to himself, Holladay said.
Scroggins made the original injury reports to Rescare, Holladay said, but her mother followed up with several calls.
It wasn’t until after Wilkinson’s oldest son, Dimmy, bought a “nanny” cam and set it up in his parents’ house in Rossville that the alleged abuse was discovered.
While Kelly said she couldn’t discuss if an investigation was conducted after the physical injuries to Wilkinson were reported, she said the company takes complaints “very seriously.”
Rossville police are investigating whether Scroggins could have abused any of his other patients, said Detective Dave Scroggins, who is not related to the suspect.
The police department has set up interviews with five patients, but “it’s very difficult to interview some of these” patients because of their physical condition, he said
Tom Scroggins remains in Walker County Jail after being denied bond on Monday, Evans said.
Contact staff writer Joy Lukachick at jlukachick@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6659. Follow her on Twitter at twitter.com/jlukachick.