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Caretaker accused of beating disabled man to face trial
By Conner Hammett, chammett@acnpapers.com
A jury trial has been scheduled for a man accused of beating a disabled resident he was assigned to care for at an Allen group home last year.
Michael Reginald Fuller, 41, of Allen, is expected to appear in court May 14.
Police say Fuller beat Taylor Hartley, a 22-year-old Allen resident with autism and muscular dystrophy, while employed as a caretaker at the home, located at 801 Meadowcreek Drive.
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| Michael Fuller |
On May 21, Taylor's parents installed a hidden camera at the home in their son's bedroom. The affidavit describes the footage as showing Fuller enter the room, grab Taylor by the collar and slap him in the face. Fuller is said to return 20 minutes later and strike Taylor in the head and body with a plastic toy gun.
Taylor is seen in the footage crying after one of the beatings and cowering when Fuller enters the room, the affidavit reads.
Taylor's mother, Karen Hartley, described the feeling of watching the footage as that of "absolute grief and unbelief."
"We suspected that someone was hitting him, but nothing like the video shows," she said.
Karen said she made multiple complaints about the marks to the home's employees before installing the camera. She said staff members told her that the marks were the result of normal falls and accidents.
"He does fall a lot, but he lived with me for 19 years and he never had bruises like that," she said.
Pam Heethuis, formerly Pam Nerkowski, owns the group home at which Taylor stayed and two more in the city of Allen.
Heethuis said she and her staff were aware of the marks, but that they appeared after Taylor returned from staying with his parents over the weekend. They did not report the marks to any law enforcement agency.
"You do all you can to make sure these people are comfortable and they're getting all of their needs met, and sometimes no matter how hard you try, you have people who aren't satisfied," she said.
When asked about the footage, Heethuis said Taylor's parents never sought permission to place a hidden camera in Taylor's room. She also said Fuller would have been fired immediately had she known he was suspected of beating a resident.
"He would not have lasted a moment longer in my employ," she said. "You can't abuse a person with handicapping conditions."
Taylor stayed at the home from Dec. 15 to June 5, the day the Hartleys reviewed the footage. He was previously at another group home owned by Heethuis from Oct. 31, 2009 to Dec. 11, 2010, though no claims of abuse have been made about his stay at that location.
The case isn't the first of its kind for the group homes. In January 2010, Frank Nerkowski, Heet-huis' ex-husband and former co-owner of one of her group homes, was indicted for criminal negligence causing serious bodily injury after a patient in need of medical care waited nine hours to see a nurse while staying at one of the homes.
The indictment also accuses Frank of "failing to supervise employee's use of restraints" on the victim. His trial begins March 21.
Karen said she and her husband, Michael, put Taylor in the group home because they were no longer able to care for him on their own. Taylor has the cognitive abilities of a 5-year-old, Karen said.
"I'm 58, but he is full time one-on-one," she said. "We could get one good person to help us and we'd need two. They'd call in sick and I'd be by myself again. Since he turned 20, he's been real hyper."
The Hartleys have since placed their son in a different group home, where they have experienced no similar incidents.
"He's one super kid," Karen said. "He's still locking doors. He still gets scared from time to time, but he's never had to see [Fuller] again and he's been real well. You'd never know that he'd been through such an ordeal. He's very strong."
Fuller is currently out on a $25,000 bail. He and a different employee initially suspected of the abuse have both been terminated since the arrest, Heethuis said.
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