Woman charged with stealing money, pills from grandmother


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COTTONWOOD HEIGHTS — A woman has been charged with a dozen felonies after police said she stole her grandmother’s pain pills and nearly $20,000 of her grandma’s money over the past year.

Ruth Castro, 43, was arrested and charged Thursday with aggravated abuse of a vulnerable adult, exploitation of a vulnerable adult, unlawful use of a financial transaction card and nine counts of forgery.

Castro was tasked with caring for her 89-year-old grandmother, Ruth Paxman, but police said she instead used the grandmother’s pills to feed her own addiction and used the elderly woman’s credit card and checks without her permission to make purchases for herself.

Those purchases included clothes, cigarettes, gas and drugs, Cottonwood Heights police detective Kevin Wyatt said Monday.

Wyatt said Castro would then turn to other sources when Paxman asked for her pills.

“If the suspect didn’t have those pain medications, she would actually go buy them on the street and give them to her grandmother.”


If the suspect didn't have those pain medications, she would actually go buy them on the street and give them to her grandmother.

–Detective Kevin Wyatt


Paxman’s daughter, Darlene Bodell, told KSL her mother appeared near death, was almost incoherent and couldn’t walk when the family visited her for Christmas.

At the time, nobody suspected anything was wrong, other than a biological time clock.

“We just thought it was old age,” Bodell said.

Paxman said she felt it as well.

“I wasn’t feeling very good — I was just down and didn’t’ care about anything,” she said in an interview Monday. “I was just ready to give up and go. A lot of them thought I was leaving.”

Bodell said she grew suspicious when her mother, in pain, called her days later asking to borrow some pills.

Bodell said she subsequently learned Paxman’s pills were vanishing and unpaid bills Castro was supposed to help manage were discarded in two garbage sacks, unopened and unpaid.

Among the bills were disconnect notices for gas and water and delinquent taxes, Bodell said.

Bodell called police on Jan. 7.

Ruth Castro, 43, was arrested and charged Thursday with aggravated abuse of a vulnerable adult, exploitation of a vulnerable adult, unlawful use of a financial transaction card and nine counts of forgery.
Ruth Castro, 43, was arrested and charged Thursday with aggravated abuse of a vulnerable adult, exploitation of a vulnerable adult, unlawful use of a financial transaction card and nine counts of forgery.

“It was more than even what initially thought that day,” Wyatt said.

Charging documents said it was “later discovered that Castro spent $19,827.39 of Ms. Paxman’s money without authorization and for her own benefit.”

The documents said Castro told investigators she used Paxman’s credit card accounts without permission and wrote at least nine checks on Paxman’s accounts to make unauthorized purchases.

Wyatt said the investigation covered Castro’s alleged actions over the past year.

“I was furious, I was hurt that we’d trusted her and she had betrayed that trust,” Bodell said.

Paxman said she also was surprised, since she believed she had a good relationship with Castro.

“I trusted her and loved her and thought she was doing the same for me, but I guess she was more helping herself,” Paxman said.

Paxman’s health has improved since she started taking her prescribed medication regularly. She can walk well on her own again.

“I feel wonderful and I can get around,” Paxman said. “I can walk, I can go anywhere.”

Bodell said she hoped her family’s experience would serve as a cautionary tale for others to keep a close eye on their elderly loved ones.

“Don’t rely on her to tell you what’s wrong,” Bodell said. “They can’t always tell you that there’s something wrong.”

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