Dementia and spousal rape

Lutherf said:

In an Iowa courtroom, an astonishing case of sex and Alzheimer’s - The Washington Post

To cut a long story short, a widow and widower, both in their 70's, meet and marry. They get along great and all the evidence points to a picture perfect marriage. She gets dementia and needs constant care. He resists moving her into a home but eventually agrees. Her daughters make the determination that she is no longer capable of consenting to sex. He figures that she's his wife and never said no before so he sees her in the home and they have sex. Soon after she dies and the daughters have him arrested.

I wonder if the kids would have made that same decision if it was her first husband (presumably their father)?

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Lutherf said:

I wonder if the kids would have made that same decision if it was her first husband (presumably their father)?

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Lutherf said:

In an Iowa courtroom, an astonishing case of sex and Alzheimer’s - The Washington Post

To cut a long story short, a widow and widower, both in their 70's, meet and marry. They get along great and all the evidence points to a picture perfect marriage. She gets dementia and needs constant care. He resists moving her into a home but eventually agrees. Her daughters make the determination that she is no longer capable of consenting to sex. He figures that she's his wife and never said no before so he sees her in the home and they have sex. Soon after she dies and the daughters have him arrested.

I wonder if the kids would have made that same decision if it was her first husband (presumably their father)?

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CanadaJohn said:

I'm curious about a number of things:

1. Who had care for the woman - the husband or the daughters?

2. Do the daughters have medical training to make a "determination" about the mother's state of mind and capacity to consent?

3. What do the facility's doctors say about the capacity of the mother prior to her death? Seems odd to me that the husband could enter a facility and have sex with his wife without the facility's employees knowing about it.

I'm guessing money is involved someway, somehow, and the marriage of their mother in her 70s was not approved by the daughters to begin with. All around, it's ugly and I'm pleased that the mother died and likely didn't suffer from her daughters' actions against the man she presumably loved.

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On March 29, Donna was moved to Concord Care Center in Garner, Iowa, a five-minute drive from her home with Rayhons. Rayhons reportedly resisted the move and clashed with Donna’s daughters — both from her first marriage — over how she should be cared for at the facility.

In May, Dunshee and Donna’s other daughter, Suzan Brunes, met with Concord staff and drew up a care plan for Donna, according to a state affidavit. At the meeting, the women and doctors concluded that Donna was no longer able to consent to sex, a fact Rayhons was informed of.

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Lutherf said:

In an Iowa courtroom, an astonishing case of sex and Alzheimer’s - The Washington Post

To cut a long story short, a widow and widower, both in their 70's, meet and marry. They get along great and all the evidence points to a picture perfect marriage. She gets dementia and needs constant care. He resists moving her into a home but eventually agrees. Her daughters make the determination that she is no longer capable of consenting to sex. He figures that she's his wife and never said no before so he sees her in the home and they have sex. Soon after she dies and the daughters have him arrested.

I wonder if the kids would have made that same decision if it was her first husband (presumably their father)?

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clownboy said:

It's in the article:



After moving her away from the new husband the daughters put together a care plan to end the sex part altogether.

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clownboy said:

It's in the article:



After moving her away from the new husband the daughters put together a care plan to end the sex part altogether.

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Fearandloathing said:

Are the children exert enough to make that determination?

I would suggest that in a sane world, that would have to carry a medical opinion.

Then there is the question of legal custody, who had the responsibility for care. I know from first hand experience that AZ patients lose who it is that is visiting, and see can see loved ones as a threat. In those situations a decision has to be made whether those visits can continue, as hurtful as that is to the loved one. Where were those care givers here?

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Fearandloathing said:

Are the children exert enough to make that determination?

I would suggest that in a sane world, that would have to carry a medical opinion.

Then there is the question of legal custody, who had the responsibility for care. I know from first hand experience that AZ patients lose who it is that is visiting, and see can see loved ones as a threat. In those situations a decision has to be made whether those visits can continue, as hurtful as that is to the loved one. Where were those care givers here?

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Lutherf said:

I'm reading the Bloomberg article on this - Can a Wife With Dementia Say Yes to Sex? - Bloomberg - and it seems that two of the daughters took it upon themselves to split the couple up. The moved their mother while her husband was out of town and he came home to an empty house. They then decided that they didn't like him taking her out of the care home and put a stop to that. Finally they decided to put a stop to to the sex.

I don't know all the facts of this case and haven't heard the daughter's side of things but from what I've read.......to say I'm disgusted by their behavior would be a serious understatement.

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joko104 said:

Since they claim the mother lacked mental capacity to make decisions, the daughters are criminal kidnappers and the facility co-conspirators. The daughters had NO legal standing to take her anywhere NOR any legal standing to make any decisions for her. None whatsoever. But their own claim, it was impossible the mother consented to being put anywhere else.

And the facility decided they really, really want the MONEY for the mother, so engaged in illegal imprisonment after conspiring with kidnappers.

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joko104 said:

Check the will. I bet the daughters weren't in it.

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Lutherf said:

I've had a good bit of experience with dementia and, generally speaking, the desire to be intimate doesn't go away. One of the problems with that, however, is that it isn't always clear if the patient really knows who they are dealing with. They generally recognize loved ones but sometimes the nature of the relationship can get scrambled. In a case like this I figure that it's probably better that she was intimate with her husband than with someone she imagined was her husband.

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WCH said:

Even though they hadn't had sex in years, my grandfather thought his wife was his mother during the last few months.

She just played along to make him happy.

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joko104 said:

Since they claim the mother lacked mental capacity to make decisions, the daughters are criminal kidnappers and the facility co-conspirators. The daughters had NO legal standing to take her anywhere NOR any legal standing to make any decisions for her. None whatsoever. But their own claim, it was impossible the mother consented to being put anywhere else.

And the facility decided they really, really want the MONEY for the mother, so engaged in illegal imprisonment after conspiring with kidnappers.

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Lutherf said:

It's a really weird disease. It's like the mental light bulb is just kind of flickering. Depending on how far along someone is they can get the relationships all screwed up. My grandmother used to refer to her daughter as "my mother" and I could be referred to as anything from "my husband", "my....what are you now?" or "that nice man".

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