After 2 Arizona assisted living center tragedies, a reporter told families the full story

After The Arizona Republic and azcentral.com published an investigative series about resident-on-resident harm in assisted living facilities earlier this year, I set out to write an article highlighting one of the most egregious clashes found in the research.

Joyce Dinet had died after her roommate, Anita Ferretti, pulled her out of bed in the middle of the night in 2019, ripping the skin off both her forearms. Heritage Village, the Mesa facility where they lived, had skipped Anita’s medicine that kept her agitation at bay. Both women had dementia. 

Earlier this year, I called Joyce’s family and Anita’s daughter, Michele. Both had sued Heritage Village. They knew what had gone wrong and how — but they didn’t know about another major incident.

About a month into my research, a new police report surfaced: The problem did not end at Heritage Village.

Read the investigation:Tragedies at 2 Arizona dementia care units leave families shattered, outraged

Anita was sent to another assisted living facility just weeks after Joyce was killed. At Brookdale North Mesa, the staff moved Anita in with a new roommate, Jennie Fischer. Not long after, workers found Jennie on the floor with significant injuries — a fractured arm and head trauma. Jennie, who was lucid, said Anita had pushed her to the ground.

Jennie died about a month later. The broken arm was listed as a contributory cause of death, after complications of Alzheimer's dementia, cardiovascular disease and emphysema.

I assumed Anita’s daughter knew about the second incident involving her mom. She had already sued Brookdale for poor care. We scheduled an interview to talk about Heritage Village’s failures, and I planned to ask her about the incident with Jennie.

But two hours into our conversation — which resurfaced trauma for Michele — it was evident she knew nothing about it. I decided to wait a day before bringing it up.

I stewed on it, dreading having to break the news. Michele was shattered by what happened at Heritage Village. I hated that I had to tell her something that could deepen her grief.

But it was going to come up, whether or not I was the messenger. 

Perhaps if Brookdale had faced any sort of public scrutiny, Michele would not have heard about this three years after the fact.

The Arizona Department of Health Services investigated a complaint related to the incident, but a department surveyor found nothing wrong. 

So there was nothing online about a Brookdale resident who killed her roommate just a few weeks earlier.

Michele wasn’t the only one who discovered shocking news during my reporting.

When I got Jennie’s daughter Joey on the phone, she told me Brookdale had ignored her and her sister’s numerous requests for their mom to get a different roommate, that they were afraid Anita could harm her. How she was convinced Brookdale was hiding something. How the whole family was angry that Brookdale didn’t protect their matriarch.

The family was told nothing about Anita’s history, either by Brookdale or state and police investigators. It fell to me to tell her what happened to Anita’s last roommate at Heritage Village.

“Oh, my God.” 

I had prepared for a range of reactions. I worried that she’d prefer not to know. 

But after I met with Joey and her sister and several of Jennie’s grandchildren a week later, Joey told me something that reminded me why I do this work.

For years, she’d felt guilty that she didn’t press Brookdale about what happened to her mom — but she hadn’t known where to start. She felt helpless under the weight of grief. 

Now, knowing what actually happened would get attention, Joey was relieved. 

“I feel free,” she said.

Reach Caitlin McGlade at caitlin.mcglade@arizonarepublic.com. Follow her on Twitter @caitmcglade.