The financial assistant to a man in his 70s with Lou Gehrig’s disease who was allegedly attacked by one of his caregivers said the former caregiver was fired when she wouldn’t stop bringing her young daughter to work with her.
“She came very well recommended,” Sonja Perry said in a telephone interview with the Chattanooga Times Free Press on Thursday, a week after the alleged attack. Perry said that at the beginning, everything was fine between the alleged victim, Gerald Sexton, and the caregiver.
Perry has known the 73-year-old Sexton since he hired her to work for his former construction company in 1993 and is authorized to speak on his behalf. She said the accused caregiver — Marcella Ann Collins, also known as Marcella Edge, 50 — was hired by Sexton in February.
Sexton has been diagnosed with ALS, or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. ALS is a progressive nervous system disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord, causing loss of muscle control, according to the Mayo Clinic.
“The first symptom he had was his foot becoming clubbed,” Perry said. “We didn’t know what was happening. It was about six months before they (the doctors) were able to diagnose him.”