Daughter: Aide told her how her mom died

About four hours after workers at a Robinson nursing home told Jane Baczewski her mother died peacefully in bed, a sobbing aide approached her.

"She said repeatedly, 'I know I'm going to lose my job but my conscience won't let me be quiet. I don't know why they always have to cover things up,' " Baczewski testified Tuesday, quoting aide Rose Beasley. "I stopped what I was doing and Rose began to tell me that my mother didn't die in her sleep. She died outside."

Baczewski, 60, testified for most of the day yesterday in the trial of Martha Bell, former administrator of Reagan Atrium I Nursing and Rehabilitation Center, before Allegheny County Common Pleas Judge David R. Cashman.

Bell, 60, of West Mifflin, is charged with involuntary manslaughter and neglect in the death of Baczewski's mother, Mabel Taylor, an Alzheimer's patient. Atrium's parent corporation, Alzheimer's Disease Alliance of Western Pennsylvania, also is charged.

Prosecutors said Taylor, 88, wandered outside during a 40-degree night into a fenced courtyard and died.

Baczewski, of Hopewell, Beaver County, testified that on Oct. 26, 2001, workers at the home called her at 5:40 a.m. and told her that her mother had died peacefully in her sleep.

When she and her husband, Dennis, arrived at the facility less than an hour later, the heat was on high in her mother's room and her mother's body was in bed, dressed in a hospital gown, she testified.

"A nurse came and hugged me, and I thanked her and asked her if she could tell me again how she died," Baczewski testified. "(The nurse) said, 'She just ceased to breathe.' I said, 'Was it a struggle?' 'It was peaceful.' "

Baczewski identified the nurse as Kathy Galati, who faces conspiracy and other charges in a separate case.

It was not until hours later, when Baczewski was collecting her mother's belongings from the room and thanking employees for caring for her mother, that Beasley told her what had happened, she testified.

Prosecutors contend Bell ordered the cover-up, including cleaning the body and turning up the heat to warm the body. They allege that chronic understaffing and negligence led to Taylor's death.

Defense attorneys denied that Bell ordered a cover-up and told the jury earlier in the week Bell wanted the body cleaned and put in clean clothes so the family could spend time with the body before a funeral home was called.

A federal jury convicted Bell in October of one count of health care fraud and making false statements on health care matters. She was sentenced to five years in prison.