But the Colorado Springs Police Department thinks otherwise -- maybe because the woman, age 86, was found lying on the floor in her own filth. And she said she'd been there for days.
On January 24, according to the CSPD, police received a call from Memorial Hospital in the Springs about a just-admitted patient, who'd been transported to the facility by ambulance. The woman, Margareta Foust, told responders, who found her coated in feces under urine-soaked sheets, that she'd been left on the floor for a week. Moreover, she maintained that her son, fifty-year-old Foust, who lived with her, had been present at the home over that stretch but had done nothing to help her.
When questioned by authorities, Foust -- the person who phoned for help -- differed with his mom's estimated down time. As quoted in an arrest document obtained by the Colorado Springs Gazette, he stressed that she had been incapacitated for "only five days." He claimed that he would have reached out for assistance earlier but was forbidden to do so by his mom, who was afraid of winding up in an old-age home.
This assertion doesn't exactly match up with the tale told by Margareta. She reportedly said that after she fell, Dennis gave her some Gatorade but otherwise left her to wallow in effluvia while calling her names.
Despite these shocking claims, Dennis has his defenders, including next-door-neighbor Martha Dalton, who portrayed him to the Gazette as a "a caring and loving young man" who devoted himself to his mother's care but was overwhelmed by her myriad medical issues. "What they are doing is outrageous," she told the paper. "This is the biggest grave injustice that has ever happened."
At this point, the CSPD is siding with Margareta. After an investigation that stretched out over more than a month, officers arrested Foust on suspicion of crimes against an at-risk adult. He's currently free on a $15,000 bond.
Look below to see not one but two booking photos of Foust -- one with glasses, the other without -- as well as coverage by 9News.
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