COBB COUNTY, Ga.,None — There are new developments in the alleged abuse of an 80-year-old Marietta woman.
Evelyn Blue remains in the Intensive Care Unit at Kennestone Hospital. Its the same hospital where Blue once worked as a registered nurse.
Her daughter, Melissa Blue, is charged with abuse.
The victim's son, Robert, said she is not expected to survive. He talked to Channel 2s Diana Davis by phone on Friday from his home in California.
She is not doing very well at all. Multiple organ failure, severe infections, malnutrition. And it looks like she is not going to make it. I just feel numb. We all do. The grief and sadness hasnt really set in yet. Were just frozen. I dont have a better way to put it, said Robert Blue.
Robert Blue said he is not completely surprised by the turn of events.
We knew something like this was going to happen. Everyone in the family knew this was going to happen, said Robert Blue, who said he became helpless to change the problems that he says began when his father died a few years ago. He said thats when his mother began to unravel, both emotionally and physically.
Though Robert Blue says his sister has mental health issues, after his father's death, it was Melissa who cared for their mother.
Robert Blue said within months, Melissa cut off nearly all communication with her brother and the rest of the family.
Melissa and her mother lived in the familys Smyrna home. The house later caught on fire.
Despite getting insurance money for repairs, Melissa and her mother did not fix the house and moved in with neighbor Sue Verner.
Verner told Davis Friday she soon noticed problems with Evelyn Blue.
She obviously had some kind of dementia, said Verner.
Verner said Melissas brother mentioned that she had mental health problems, but at first didnt notice any problems. That quickly changed.
The more I got to know her, the more I realized she wasnt quite fine. She would write huge rambling letters, 60 pages, said Verner.
Both women, says Verner, were not in touch with reality.
After a month, they moved into a Smyrna motel.
Thats when both Verner and Robert Blue told Davis that the mother and daughter cut off communication and stopped communicating with family but with neighbors who tried to help.
Verner said she went to the motel to check on the women. Eventually, she says, Melissa turned her away.
You never saw the mom. You could see her in there on the bed, but she wouldnt come to the door or anything. I asked social services to check on them at one point, said Verner.
When his mother and sister refused to see him, Robert Blue said he made countless calls and wrote pleas for help to police, and social services.
It didnt help, Robert Blue claims.
When social services visited the women in the motel, they refused help, he said.
A social worker would be sent out, and the social worker would simply ask, my mother, Maam, are you OK? My mother, who has some type of dementia, would simply answer, Yes, Im fine and that would be the end of the story. I just feel that a much better job could have been done by social services in the area, said Robert Blue.
Both women vanished from that Smyrna motel.
On Thursday morning, Melissa Blue called 911 from another motel. When Marietta police arrived, they discovered Evelyn Blue bedridden -- lying in her own filth covered with bed sores.
Police said the women lived at the motel for nearly a year, seeing no one. The manager told Davis that Melissa Blue refused housekeeping services and that no one from the motel went into the room the entire time it was rented.
Melissa Blue is being held at the Cobb County Jail on an elderly cruelty charge, a felony.
If her mother dies, Marietta police said the charge against her could be upgraded.
Robert Blue told Davis that he will head to Atlanta to pick up the pieces. He said he is writing a letter to social services about the entire situation.
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