Couple allegedly left woman’s sick father to die on the couch
Inset from left to right: Frederick Groves and Carmen Groves (Vanderburgh County Sheriff’s Office). Background: A house in Evansville, Indiana, where the couple allegedly left the woman’s father to die slowly (Google Maps).
An Indiana couple is behind bars for allowing a man in his 70s to slowly die in his own excrement on a couch in a rarely visited room of their home, Indiana authorities say.
The wife in this case is the victim’s daughter, and the husband is the victim’s son-in-law. And police say the elderly man’s messy, drawn-out death was facilitated in part to embezzle his Social Security checks.
Frederick Groves, 60, is charged with neglect of a person in need of assistance, thereby causing the death of the victim, altering the location of a death, failure to report human remains and exploitation of an endangered adult. Carmen Groves, 49, is charged with neglect of a person in need of assistance, thereby causing the death of the victim, altering the location of a death and failure to report human remains, according to Vanderburgh County Sheriff’s Office records.
On June 23, Frederick Groves called 911 to report that his father-in-law, Kenneth Rickenbaugh, 73, had died in his bedroom at the couple’s Fourth Avenue home in Evansville, according to an affidavit obtained by Evansville-based NBC affiliate station WFIE. While speaking with first responders, the husband reportedly ventured that Rickenbaugh had died sometime that morning or night before.
There was a strong smell of feces in the bedroom, police said.
The dead man was found on his back on a couch, his knees drawn up to his chest in a fetal position, police said. By the time rescue workers arrived, rigor mortis had already set in. The couch itself was soaked with a mixture of feces, urine and blood, police said. Flies were buzzing around Rickenbaugh’s body.
And when the man’s body was removed from the couch, part of the upholstery was exposed because he had “sunk into it,” police said.
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According to police, the Groves said Rickenbaugh came to live with them about a year ago before his health deteriorated to the point where he could no longer leave the couch a month before his death.
“When I walked in there and saw him in my own home, it terrified me,” Carmen Groves told WFIE before her arrest. “On Friday, he was sitting up, he was talking, he was eating, he was drinking. Then all of a sudden, on Sunday, I walked in there and he was dead.”
The man’s daughter reportedly had at least some variations in her narrative style when she spoke to officers. Police say her story about exactly when she discovered her father’s body changed over time. And officers claim she gave the impression that she didn’t really believe her father was actually sick — but that he was faking his illness because he craved their attention and care.
However, the care Rickenbaugh received left much to be desired.
The victim was visibly emaciated, police said, and his body was covered in pressure sores – the suspected source of the blood on the couch.
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Frederick Groves, for his part, was reportedly open about the role he played – or rather did not play – in caring for his wife’s ailing father.
“I couldn’t go into that room because of the smell,” he told WFIE before his arrest. “I don’t know how to put it, it’s like death.”
The husband allegedly told police that he often heard the older man say, “Help. Help.”
“I asked Frederick who was helping Rickenbaugh use the bathroom and he stated he believed Rickenbaugh had just defecated and urinated while lying on the couch,” Evansville Police Detective Nicholas Hackworth wrote in an affidavit obtained by the Courier & Press.
The dead man’s daughter was supposed to be his caregiver, the husband told officers. But there was little evidence that he was able to eat, drink or even use the toilet, police said.
Investigators say Rickenbaugh, whose illness left him virtually confined to the couch where he died, would have had no way of using the nearest bathroom in the house because it was so crowded that he couldn’t even get in with his wheelchair.
“He never went to the bathroom,” Carmen Groves told WFIE. “He would either use his pants or it would get to the point where I would get him diapers. He would take them off and throw them everywhere.”
The detective noticed that the floor in Rickenbaugh’s bedroom was wet – and then he noticed “a mop bucket filled with dirty soapy water and cleaning supplies in the hallway by the door.”
And this is where opinions differed, according to the police.
Frederick Groves allegedly said the couple cleaned the room and removed dog feces so emergency responders wouldn’t step in the mess. Carmen Groves, on the other hand, allegedly told police they cleaned up a spilled bottle of cold medicine.
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A subsequent investigation revealed that Rickenbaugh’s bank account, into which he deposited his $800 monthly Social Security payments, had been emptied. Surveillance footage allegedly showed the husband regularly withdrawing hundreds of dollars in cash from the same account. Financial reports showed recent purchases from that account at Rent One, Walmart and Family Dollar — with the transactions likely not in Rickenbaugh’s favor.
According to police, a medical examination revealed that the deceased man was actually unable to move from the couch and would have required constant palliative care.
“Carmen and Frederick Groves did not care for Rickenbaugh or seek help for him, even though they volunteered to take on his care,” the affidavit continues. “Instead, they left Rickenbaugh to lie in his own urine and feces without access to food or water in the days – and likely weeks – leading up to his death.”
Rickenbaugh died from a number of complications – including two types of heart disease, emphysema, failure to thrive, dehydration and pressure ulcers, according to the Vanderburgh County coroner.
Both the man and the woman are being held in the Vanderburgh County Jail on $100,000 cash bail.
They are scheduled to appear in court on September 30.
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