Elderly Mom Faces Foreclosure After Son Steals Savings
Dec. 17, 2010— -- Three years after her first stroke, Mary Jo English saw her world destroyed not because of her health but by her oldest son. The widower discovered her life savings were plundered by her son Mark English, who gambled it all away.
"My brother was supposed to take care of our mother, not destroy her and steal all of her assets for his gambling habit," says Daniel English. "This was supposed to be her last place to live."
And now six days after Christmas, Mary Jo is expected to lose her home to foreclosure.
Mary Jo purchased her home in the South Hill section of Spokane, Washington, after her husband died. "I bought this house because Mark liked it," Mary Jo says with a slur, a result of her first stroke. The 72-year old woman lost her speech after suffering a stroke in 2006, and with the help of a speech therapist was able to regain her ability to talk.
The following year Mary Jo had another stroke that caused her to lose her sense of taste. That's when Mary Jo, the mother of three adult children, gave her eldest son Mark power of attorney.
But, in 2009, Mary Jo discovered something was amiss after her granddaughter's husband stumbled upon a stash of old mail in Mark's truck. Only then did the family begin to piece together a complex scheme by her son.
For years Mary Jo failed to get any mail. The elderly woman never saw any of the birthday cards her grand-daughters sent to her home address, and the bills that were expected to arrive each month failed to make it to her mailbox. "The girls would ask about birthday cards and I told them, I don't get mail, not even junk mail," says Mary Jo.
But every month Mary Jo wrote a check for her mortgage payment and handed it to her son to mail. Or, so she thought.
Little did Mary Jo know that her son's room held a secret treasure trove of mail.
In his room, Mark kept a four-foot-tall box that was off-limits."He always insisted I stay out of his bedroom and his private stuff," Mary Jo says of son Mark. "He told me not to touch it, and the proof was all in that box," she says.
