Gail Andrews Mom Hasnt Been Seen In Yrs,Remains Found At Her House Today

[Whisper]

Skeletal remains found at Fort Myers home
FORT MYERS, Fla. - Lee County Sheriff's deputies are investigating the discovery of skeletal remains at a home in Fort Myers.

"Just when you walked outside in the morning, the smell was so bad, it would make the neighbors gag, make me gag, my kids would ask, what's that smell, dad and it's because there were so many rats in the house," said neighbor Ken Degroot.

Investigators say the remains likely belong to the elderly mother of a woman living at a home on St. Andrews Circle North. During a well-being check last week, deputies say 61 year-old Gail Andrews was found to be living in "deplorable conditions." The remains were also found in the home Friday after deputies received a search warrant. "You could just sit there and watch the rats just pour in and out of the windows, so, if she went to the store or something, mom's in there with the rats, bedridden," said Degroot.

Neighbors say Andrews' mother hadn't been seen in several years. "Last time I saw her was probably five years ago," said Degroot.
[...]

http://www.winknews.com/Local-Florid...ort-Myers-home

[Valasca]

Sigh. 5 fricking years, and no one looks? no one wonders?

[CplPunishment]

Horrendously Deplorable. Bet Rats were eating on her for years.

[MC30]

so how long had the mom been dead? and was she the cause of the smell?

[Chaindrive]

http://www.news-press.com/article/20...011/1002/RSS01

10:29 P.M. — Skeletal remains believed to be those of an 87-year-old woman were found in a home she shared with her daughter in south Fort Myers.
Neighbors speculated the woman may have been dead for years.

[...]

No foul play is suspected and no charges were pending against Gail Andrews as of tonight.
Neighbor Peggy Ward, who said she had spoken with Gail on the phone multiple times Saturday, said the daughter was at the Ruth Cooper Center, a mental health and substance abuse facility.

[...]

Ward said Gail, a former teacher, was scared and worried about what people would think of her.
Neighbors had long suspected Gail’s sick, bed-ridden mother had died but Gail never admitted it, Ward said.

[...]

Rats also made their way to Gail’s car, which she didn’t seem to mind, even letting them feast on the groceries she often left in the vehicle, he said.
Gail liked to take care of animals, he said, considering them her friends, but she took it to an extreme.

[...]

He said neighbors had called various authorities over the years, including police, Animal Services and DCF, but none had done anything.
Frank Kresini, who lives next to the home and knows Gail, said he thinks the situation is rooted in money problems.
“I think the reason she kept her mother’s body here is because she didn’t have the money to have her cremated or buried,” Kresini said.
Court records show the Lee County commission authorized a code enforcement lien on the Andrewses’ home in 2006 for $518, and again in 2009 for $650.85 after the county removed “nuisance accumulation.”
Ward said Gail and her parents (her father Andrew died in 1999) had lived in the home for more than 30 years. Property records indicate they bought the two-bedroom, 2,416-square-foot home in 1974. The home was assessed at $82,790, according to 2009 Lee tax records.

[...]

DeGroot said he last saw Gladys about five years ago, when, in an apparent move to quell the speculation, Gail placed Gladys out on the front porch for about half an hour.
“I think she was just showing the neighbors, ‘Look, she’s here,” DeGroot said. “That was the last time we saw her.”

[Whisper]

Neighbor: Embarrassed woman lived with mother's remains
FORT MYERS: A Fort Myers woman who told investigators she lived with the remains of her mother for over a year in her filthy, rat-infested home spoke to NBC2. We caught up with her after she got kicked out of her temporary home - a neighbor's tree house!
Peggy Ward says she feels awful that next-door neighbor Gail Andrews was forced out of her Fort Myers home.
I felt horrible she doesn't have a place to stay, but my husband was like, ‘nope,'" she said.
Lee County officials we spoke to say they were forced to condemn her home after deputies found piles of trash, rats and skeletal remains inside that are believed to be Andrew's mother.
"I know she was traumatized her mother died right in front of her eyes. She didn't want anyone to know she was alone," said Ward.

That was 14 months ago.
Ward said Andrews was afraid to report her mother's death because paramedics would see she was living in a house of filth.
We caught up with Andrews at another neighbor's house Wednesday.
"I spoke with Peggy. I prefer you not speak to Mrs. Ward or any of my neighbors," she said.
In just under a week, Andrews went from living in this house of filth, to being Baker-Acted for 72 hours and then staying in a neighbor's tree house.
The tree house is located in Ward's backyard. Andrews spent Monday night there before Ward asked her to leave.
"I was like, ‘You can't stay here.' I feel awful, you have no idea," said Ward.
Ward says the fact that Andrews has no living relatives and no place to call home makes it even worse.
"Do I make my family happy, or make Gail happy? I felt so guilty," said Ward.
[...]

http://www.nbc-2.com/Global/story.asp?S=12661661

[Whisper]

LEE COUNTY: A woman who was living with her mother's remains in a filthy, rat-infested house has been indicted on two federal charges related to theft of public money and Social Security fraud.

In June 2010, the Department of Children and Families was called to 6242 St. Andrews Circle in Fort Myers to check out complaints people were living in ‘deplorable conditions.'

Inside the home, investigators found skeletal remains, believed to be those of Gladys Andrews, Gail Andrews' mother.

Count one of the indictment alleges Gail Christine Andrews accepted and used Social Security payments she was not entitled to receive.

She is accused of taking retirement benefits payments and survivor's benefits payments of $52,308.70 between March 2006 and July 2010.

Count two alleges Andrews concealed her mother's death so she could continue to receive payments from the Social Security Administration totaling $73,715.70. The payments were received between January 2005 and July 2010.

The indictment also indicates Andrews must forfeit any real or personal property derived from the Social Security payments.

Andrews was in federal court Thursday and pleaded not guilty to the charges.

[...]

http://www.nbc-2.com/Global/story.asp?S=14313959

[Gidget]

Sigh. 5 fricking years, and no one looks? no one wonders?

This is beyond me. Before my mom went to assisted living, she lived alone with her dog (who is now my dog). She went out of town for a few days and I was dogsitting. The second day I was outside with the dog, and the next door neighbor (who speaks very little English) came outside, pointed to my mom's house, and asked, "Where is the lady? Is she OK?"

Two days. Not five fucking years.

[Dakota Valkyrie]

A Fort Myers woman who lived with her mummified mother for more than a year admitted today that she’d cashed her Social Security checks for nearly a year after her death.

Gail Andrews, 63, of South Fort Myers, pleaded guilty to theft of government property and failing to disclose an event, a death that affected how much money Gladys Andrews would have received in Social Security Administration Retirement Benefits payments and Survivor’s Benefits.

At an hourlong hearing in Fort Myers, Andrews told U.S. District Court Magistrate Sheri Polster Chappel that her 87-year-old mother died in April 2009, not March 2006, as the government alleges.

“My mother passed away and I did not report that she passed away,” Andrews told the magistrate.

She used the money for basic daily household expenses, she said, adding that she did not intend to do it for a long time.

“There were many extenuating circumstances,” Andrews said of continuing to receive her mothers’ benefits. “… There were many, many details that will explain that.”

Andrews’ federal public defender, Martin Der Ovanesian, told the magistrate they would be disputing the amount that prosecutors say she received.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Michelland said the amount the government contends was stolen was $52,308.70, which is based on the government’s contention that Gladys Andrews died in March 2006.

Chappell, who spent nearly an hour ensuring Andrews understood the ramifications of pleading, said she’d recommend that U.S. District Judge Charlene Honeywell accept the guilty pleas. She ordered a presentence report be conducted by the probation office, which will weigh Andrews’ lack of a criminal record and other factors and recommend a sentence.

Andrews faces up to 10 years in federal prison on the theft charge and five years on the failure to disclose offense, three years of supervised release, and a $250,000 fine on each count listed in her 2010 indictment. She’ll also have to repay the government what she stole.

No sentencing date was set and Andrews curtly declined comment as she left.
[...]

Andrews’ case was exposed in June 2010, when Lee County sheriff’s deputies found the badly decomposed body hidden in a bedroom underneath 2-foot-high piles of trash littering her St. Andrews Circle home after a wellness check. That check was prompted by concerned neighbors, who hadn’t seen Gladys Andrews in years and complained about rats, cats, trash and odors coming from the rundown home.

Since that time, various businesses have donated time and supplies to her effort to remain in the 2,416-square-foot house she’d shared with her mother and father, Andrew John Andrews, who died in 1999 at 83. His widow then received survivor’s benefits, which Gail Andrews then took.

Andrews, a Lee County teacher for 20 years, has said things piled up in the home after she left her job to care for her ailing parents. She has said her mother fell making her bed, couldn’t get up and she couldn’t lift her. So she placed pillows and blankets on the floor, but she died two days later.

Fearing she’d be thrown out of the home she’d lived in for 36 years, she kept it a secret.

http://www.marconews.com/news/2011/o...-security-che/

[tmdgirl]

The pictures of the house make me want to throw up. I don't get how someone could live like that.

[Tundratot]

You and me both. I am not a great housekeeper, I admit, but I wouldn't be able to live with trash strewn two feet deep all over the house. I just don't understand how anybody could. Dust is one thing; dirty, rotting, squishy trash is quite another. I also don't know how a person could thrown trash and debris all over their dead mother. WTF?!

[plainbelliedsneetch]

The woman's obviously not right in the head, so I sympathize with her to a point. I can see a hoarder having trouble dealing with the death of their only companion (particularly since she seems to have given up her own life and identity to care for her parents) but like Tundratot I can't imagine dumping two feet of trash over a loved one's body.

[princessgrandma]

So she didn't report her mother's death b/c she was afraid of what people would think? I'm sure she's not going to be pleased with what they think of her for hiding her mother's death and remains, and cashing her social security checks for five years.

Sick-assed bitch. I'm a little lax on cleaning. Shit, sometimes I consider myself a slob, but then I'm the type of person that more times than not, it's more important to play with, or rock or cuddle with my grandkids than it is to make sure I've mopped the kitchen floor. But, I have never been as bad as this bitch. She was living in a DUMP.