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SALT LAKE CITY — A man has been charged with abuse after his elderly father was found living in his own feces and weighing just 118 pounds.
Kevin B. Syme, 52, of Tooele, was charged Thursday in 3rd District Court with aggravated abuse of a vulnerable adult, a second-degree felony, and exploitation of a vulnerable adult, a third-degree felony.
The investigation began in 2017 when Unified police were called to a trailer home where a woman found her 87-year-old grandfather “covered in feces,” according to charging documents.
“The trailer did not have any power, running water and did not have any food in it. A bucket of dirty water and a rag was found on the floor next to where (the victim) was laying. (The victim) stated the bucket is his toilet,” the charges state.
The man told emergency responders that he “hadn’t eaten for awhile” and hadn’t been able to get out of bed for a couple of weeks, according to the charges.
The man was taken to a local hospital in critical condition. Doctors determined he suffered from extensive dehydration, severe malnourishment and a urinary tract infection, and other conditions, the charges state. It took nurses an hour to bathe him “due to the excessive amount of feces and detritus struck to him,” the charges state.
He weighed just 118 pounds at the time he was taken to the hospital, whereas he weighed 152 pounds just three years earlier, according to charging documents.
Syme was his father’s primary caregiver at this time, the charges state.
The grandfather died less than a month after being taken to the hospital.
Police learned that Syme did not attend his father’s funeral, but did try to “clean out” his bank account one week after his death, according to charging documents. A detective interviewed the bank’s branch manager who said while the victim was alive, Syme would go through the drive-up window with him many times to withdraw cash, the charges state.
When interviewed by police, Syme said he was “partially” responsible for his father’s living conditions and could not explain why it looked the way it did when his father was removed from the trailer, according to charging documents. He also wasn’t sure when his father’s health declined and admitted he wasn't allowed to visit him at the hospital.
Unified police said charges weren’t filed until Thursday because of the complex investigation that involved collecting bank records and interviews.
