Mother speaks out after son’s death in West Valley carbon monoxide incident

WEST VALLEY CITY — A mother spoke out Wednesday about her son’s death and called for accountability, after police said the man was one of three who died of carbon monoxide poisoning after being left in a running vehicle in a garage by a care worker.

Investigators late last week identified the deceased men as Colton Moser, 25, Mosa’ati Moa, 22 and Tim Jones, 39.

Police arrested 25-year-old Isaiah Vaughn Pulu on suspicion of felony manslaughter and aggravated abuse of a vulnerable adult-criminal negligence.

According to a jail probable cause statement, Pulu picked up the disabled adults from their group home and took them to a garage outside his apartment and instructed them to stay inside the vehicle, which was on with the windows down, while he went inside to “eat and watch TV.”

When he returned to the vehicle approximately 3-and-a-half hours later, investigators wrote that Pulu found the garage door was closed and all 3 men were unresponsive.

On Wednesday, Moser’s mother, Wendy Rollins, said there was no excuse for what took place.

“There could be no excuse — there is no excuse — for them to be left together alone in any environment,” Rollins said during an interview with KSL. “We always felt like as long as there were multiple sets of eyes and there were multiple staff present, this type of circumstance couldn’t happen.”

Rollins remembered her “Colty-pie” for his “big sparkly eyes and huge, wide smile.”

“He was the hardest thing I have ever done, and the absolute biggest blessing,” Rollins said.

The mother said while Moser was an Italian “spitfire,” he taught his family patience.

“Colton doesn’t really fit the common mold of autism,” Rollins said. “When he hit the age of around 18, he became extremely aggressive.”

Rollins said it was that aggressiveness that eventually landed him under the care of Safe and Sound Services, when other care facilities wouldn’t accept her son because of his disposition.

“He had been at Safe and Sound for over a year,” Rollins said. “It was a constant struggle of trying to ask for improvement, ask for better treatment.”

Rollins said she had met Pulu and complained about him previously.

“He worked at Colton’s home, his residential care,” she said. “He knew Colton well.”

Despite the issues, Rollins said she never expected to receive the call she did from one of the owners of the company.

“He was hysterical and said that Colton was deceased,” Rollins said. “At the time, he couldn’t tell me any details, and I automatically assumed there had been a terrible car accident.”

She said a subsequent call informed her that her son and two of his roommates had died.

Eventually, she said she learned they had died of carbon monoxide poisoning.

“He was 100% nonverbal,” Rollins said. “He wouldn’t know how to call out — that’s heartbreaking to me.”

Prosecutors said Monday they expected to screen charges against Pulu this week.

Also this week, the Utah Department of Health and Human Services issued a notice of emergency agency action against Safe and Sound Services LLC, barring the company from accepting new clients for 30 days while an investigation took place.

Attempts to reach the company’s owners for comment Wednesday evening did not immediately result in a response.

Friends set up a GoFundMe* as Rollins’ family deals with the loss.

Rollins said she believed Colton was in a better place now, but she said she hoped never to see something like this happen to anyone else.

“Colty deserved quality of life,” Rollins said. “He deserved dignity, and he didn’t get that.”

  *KSL TV does not assure that the money deposited to the account will be applied for the benefit of the persons named as beneficiaries. If you are considering a deposit to the account, you should consult your own advisors and otherwise proceed at your own risk.

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