The old woman was missing her left thumb. A thick layer of dirt covered her arms and legs. And when the police officers and social workers got close, a foul smell filled their nostrils.
It was July , and the authorities had showed up at the house in West Covina, California, after receiving reports that multiple people were living on the property for unknown reasons and cars were roaring in and out of the backyard at all hours of the day. She seemed confused about who was staying there and what they were doing.
At one point she fainted in front of the officers. Amis knew LaDonna. Nearly everyone in West Covina knew LaDonna, or at least knew of her.
She and her husband, St. James, first made headlines in the late s when they adopted a baby chimpanzee named Moe and raised him like a son. But St. James had died the previous week and now the officers believed his frail and cognitively impaired wife was being taken advantage of. They had no idea that it would take nearly a year to extricate her from the situation, and during that time hundreds of thousands of dollars would be drained from her accounts, most of her possessions would be stolen and members of a violent motorcycle gang would take control of her property.
LaDonna had allegedly experienced an extreme version of what happens to millions of seniors in the U. Financial exploitation is the most common form of abuse against elderly people.
