Woman gets probation for neglecting elderly mother
BY DAN ROZEK Staff Reporter drozek@suntimes.com June 19, 2012 3:14PM
Brenda Tucker
Updated: June 19, 2012 3:15PM
A Naperville woman who let her elderly mother became riddled with bedsores and smeared with feces was sentenced Tuesday to 2-1/2 years probation and ordered to undergo a psychological evaluation.
Brenda Tucker, 55, also was ordered to perform 100 hours of community service after she pleaded guilty to felony criminal neglect for failing to care for her ailing, 82-year-old mother, DuPage County authorities said.
Betty Tucker died in 2009 within days of being taken to a downstate hospital by her daughter, with whom she’d been living in Naperville since leaving a Peoria nursing home about six months earlier, prosecutor Diane Michalak said.
The older woman died of heart disease but the neglect contributed to her death, authorities said when they charged Brenda Tucker in 2010.
When Tucker brought her mother to a Peoria hospital in July 2009, the older woman was plagued by bedsores that were crusted with feces and dog fur, Michalak said.
Brenda Tucker had faced a maximum sentence of five years in prison.
