Obese woman's death investigated
By Gabriel Margasak staff writer
August 11, 2004
GOLDEN GATE — Few knew she was there, lying alive but helpless on a couch amid squalor.
No one called for help until it was too late.
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Gayle Grinds, 39, died Wednesday morning amid a large effort to rescue the 478-pound, 4-foot-10-inch woman from her run-down home after someone called 911 to say she was having trouble breathing.
While the cause of her death was "morbid obesity," according to the Treasure Coast Medical Examiner, authorities are investigating how she could have deteriorated into such a dire condition.
"The circumstances surrounding her death are unusual. We don't know what we have," said Sgt. Jenell Atlas, Martin County Sheriff's Office spokeswoman. "Was there someone taking care of her? Was someone supposed to be taking care of her?
"We are certainly looking to see if there is neglect here," she said.
An unpleasant smell reached out into the street from the small duplex in the 2600 block of S.E. Clayton Street. Trash, debris and human waste filled the home she had lived in for the last several years. There was no air conditioning. There were no fans.
Neighbors said a senior citizen sat outside the home on an old yellow chair most days, but none of them knew who he was or that there was a woman inside.
There had been little official trouble at the home. Deputies had only been called a handful of times in recent years for minor incidents unrelated to the woman, according to sheriff's records.
The Council on Aging Community Coach shuttle had been to the home several times last year and once as recently as last March to pick up someone other than Grinds.
Bus drivers would have notified someone if they had seen a problem, Roger Eckert, the head of Community Coach, said Wednesday.
No one had called state authorities to report a problem either, an official from the Department of Children and Families said Wednesday.
This is the life Grinds lived. For how long, authorities don't yet know.
Sheriff's detectives were still trying to confirm who may have lived there with her or whether she had family and where they had been.
Authorities said they still didn't know who was caring for her, how she was fed or if she received checks and who cashed them. Those who called 911 claimed to be family but their identities were still under investigation.
No one answered the door on the other side of the duplex Wednesday afternoon.
Other neighbors were shocked.
"We didn't even know there was a woman in there. It's very sad," said Jerry Thomas, 47, who lives across the street. "I'm glad they got her out of that hell hole."
That effort took more than a dozen fire rescue personnel working into the night, eventually bringing the woman out of the home on the couch and borrowing a flat bed trailer from Home Depot to take her to the hospital.
She died at 3:12 a.m., Atlas said.
"It was very sad, very tragic," she said, noting it was one of the worst incidents she had ever seen as a deputy. "There's no amount of training that can prepare you for this."
Along with detectives, the DCF plans to look into the incident.
"I wonder why we were never contacted," said Christine Demetriades, a DCF district spokeswoman. "We would become involved if there was a caregiver there that didn't give her appropriate care."
At the same time, she urged anyone who sees such a situation to call her agency, which helps adults as well as children.
"Neighbors who are aware of a caretaker not taking care of a person, neighbor, mother, father . . . appropriately, they need to contact the hotline."
The abuse hotline number is:1-800-96-ABUSE.
