Father of Members Dan and Lisa Tudor;
Friend of Victim Jean E. Carter

Our father, John Tudor, of California tragically fell victim to both elder abuse and financial exploitation. As he grappled with the onset of dementia, Alzheimer’s, and several undetected mini-strokes, his condition was further complicated by COPD and a tendency to self-medicate.

His vulnerability increased after relocating to an unlicensed care home, where he fell under the influence of a manipulative caregiver. This caregiver, having callously placed her own elderly husband, Jean Carter, in a care facility in Mexico, a victim of elder abuse himself, assumed control over our father’s life.

She clandestinely secured both Power of Attorney and Advance Health Care Directive (AHCD) without our knowledge. Contact with our father became restricted; his cell phone mysteriously lost service in California, forcing us to communicate through the caregiver’s phone, always under her watchful presence and with calls on speakerphone.

In a devious plot, she, with the aid of unscrupulous family members and an unethical attorney, persuaded our father to sell family-owned vineyards that had been in our family for nearly a century. The sale, conducted at a considerable loss, was just the beginning. Two additional bank accounts were opened, granting her and a family member unrestricted access to his finances. Our father was manipulated into purchasing a house, with the transaction structured to ensure its ownership transferred to the caregiver, her sister acting as the realtor. Extravagant vacations for the caregiver and her family to Europe, numerous vehicle purchases, and huge cash withdrawals from the trust ensued, all financed by our father.

The caregiver’s unethical attorney altered our father’s will and trust, initially set up in the 1990s, appointing new executors.

Meanwhile, the caregiver broadcasted to all that our father was on the brink of death for 4 years, while self-proclaiming to be the love of his life. In a disturbing revelation, hospital documents revealed that our father was being administered 325 mg of Vicodin daily, sourced from Mexico by the caregiver.

She even texted us, joking about hospitalizing our father for dehydration after giving him Ambien and frequently shuttled him between various emergency rooms and hospitals. The caregiver of course was filling out all the paperwork.

As his condition worsened, the caregiver enrolled him in a for-profit hospice service, during which she began writing gifts to her family, amounting to over $400,000, alongside hefty cash transfers and monthly payments to herself.

Tragically, our father passed away under the caregiver’s supervision, the cause of death being an overdose of morphine and fentanyl.

We, his children, were left in the dark, informed only by a hospice social worker.

In our desperate search for answers, we resorted to calling funeral homes in the Monterey area to locate his body. The caregiver and her accomplice (our half sister) hastened to have him cremated, a move we thankfully managed to prevent. The caregiver’s AHCD complicated matters further, necessitating a court order for an autopsy and toxicology report. Even in death, our father’s dignity was contested, with the funeral home denying us his ashes, citing the caregiver’s AHCD as justification.

We are now pursuing our case with the California Probate Court, Civil court and battling the Monterey County District Attorney’s Office to file charges.

We have received zero help from the District Attorney’s Office or the Monterey County Sheriff’s Department, both uninterested in doing their job!

The laws protecting vulnerable elders are on the books.  The Sheriff Department and District Attorney’s Office need to step up and do their jobs!