A Texas woman was charged with causing injury to a disabled person after hospital staff informed police of her 32-year-old daughter’s condition, which reportedly weighed only 55 pounds.
Felisa Ann Sepulveda, 48, was arrested on February 28 after bringing her unnamed adult daughter to Ascension Seton Hospital in Luling, Texas, claiming that she had been suffering from a cough for the previous week.
According to an affidavit obtained by KENS, a local CBS affiliate, the patient displayed much more serious symptoms, including pneumonia, malnutrition, and dehydration, and resembled a “concentration camp survivor.”
According to the affidavit, hospital staff reported that the younger woman had been experiencing “severe caloric deficit” for an extended period of time and was “caked” in human waste all over her body.
She said that her clothes “had dirt and dried animal and human faeces, urine and blood on them.” The patient was also said to have several bed sores from being immobile and rotting gums.
Sepulveda reportedly told hospital staff that her daughter could walk and feed herself, but the affidavit stated that the younger woman was so malnourished that doctors rejected her claim. In her police interview, Sepulveda allegedly admitted to cleaning her daughter with wipes and not bathing or showering in over five years. The last time she saw a doctor was in 2018.
According to the affidavit, there were “no medical reasons for (the woman’s) emaciation and malnutrition.”
According to The Seguin Gazette, Sepulveda and her two adult children lived in a home with 29 dogs on the property. Those dogs were removed from their homes and placed with local shelters and foster homes. Sepulveda, who was reportedly unemployed, was the sole carer for her daughter and a disabled adult son.
Sepulveda was arrested and charged with felony injury to a disabled individual. She is currently detained at the Guadalupe County Jail on a $300,000 bond.
