Delaware County woman charged in death of elderly mom kept in 'deplorable’ conditions in Havertown home

The 83-year-old woman was bruised, hungry, and covered in sores and open wounds, too many for doctors to count.

When police and EMS crews arrived at Patricia Gottlieb’s Havertown home after she took a fall last year, they found she was living in “deplorable” conditions" — flies, moths, human and animal feces, structural damage, and hoarded items.

She was confused, too, authorities said, suffering from dementia and unable to comprehend that her own daughter was the one alleged to have caused her such pain.

After years of neglect, Gottlieb died of a severe bacterial infection in March 2018, Delaware County District Attorney Katayoun M. Copeland said Tuesday as she announced the arrest of the 58-year-old daughter, Ellyn Beth Gottlieb.

“Ellyn Gottlieb showed little regard for human decency,” Copeland said at a news conference at the Delaware County Courthouse. “As a result of her action and inaction, Ellyn Gottlieb caused her mother’s death.”

She was arraigned Tuesday on charges of neglect of care of a dependent person, aggravated assault, involuntary manslaughter, and theft. She declined comment as she was walked out of the courthouse in handcuffs and was placed in a police car.

In 2017, Gottlieb removed her mother from Broomall Manor retirement community, saying she would care for her at the home they shared on the 200 block of David Drive, Copeland said. Instead, she stole more than $110,000 from her mother, authorities said, and did nothing to help her.

Authorities were first alerted to possible neglect in January 2018 when a report came to the Delaware County Office of Services for Aging. Agency officials said they visited the Gottliebs’ Havertown home, but Ellyn Gottlieb, who had her mother’s power of attorney at the time, refused to let them in.

When they returned the next day with Haverford Township police, Ellyn Gottlieb allowed only police officers inside. An officer reported the home was in “complete shambles” with signs of hoarding, water leaking from the second floor, and a strong smell of urine and feces. Patricia Gottlieb told the officer that she didn’t need help because her daughter was taking care of her, police said.

A week later, the older woman fell at the home and was taken by ambulance to Bryn Mawr Hospital, where police and medical officials learned more about her condition.

They found she was bruised from head to toe, covered in feces, had stage four ulcers and open wounds (one the size of a lemon), and complained of being hungry, they said. Hospital personnel noted that she appeared to have been sitting in the same position, often in her own waste, for extended periods of times, investigators said, and was seldom fed.

Later that month, Patricia Gottlieb was discharged from Bryn Mawr Hospital, authorities said, and admitted to Westgate Hill Nursing Facility, where she died two months later. Her cause of death, an autopsy showed, was bacteremia, an infection in which bacteria get into the bloodstream. She also suffered from possible sepsis due to several severe ulcers, the coroner determined.

In interviews with detectives, Ellyn Gottlieb said she cared for her mother, feeding her four times a day, giving her medication, and cleaning up after her. Police said Gottlieb told them she often struggled to properly clean her mother, but had attempted to do so about a week before she went to the hospital.

With power of attorney, Gottlieb, who was unemployed, said she had access to her mother’s debit and credit cards, but denied stealing money from her mother’s account or using monthly pension and Social Security checks for her own purchases.

A yearlong investigation found otherwise, authorities said.

In 2016 and 2017, while her mother was in the retirement home, Gottlieb stole nearly $89,000 from her mother’s bank accounts, as well as thousands of dollars each month in Social Security and pension checks, authorities said. The charges included 19 purchases from QVC, 83 purchases from an online auction site called Tophatter, and several ATM withdrawals. At the same time, she failed for years to pay taxes on her mother’s home.

Investigators also discovered that Patricia Gottlieb had been “thriving” at Broomall Manor, where she received occupational and physical therapy, they said. But in September 2017, after the home’s staff tried to collect nearly $23,000 in outstanding payments, Ellyn Gottlieb removed her mother from the facility.

The mother and daughter were the only adults living at home, Copeland said, declining to comment on whether children also resided there.

Unable to post $250,000 cash bail, Gottlieb is being held at the Delaware County Correctional Facility. She awaits a preliminary hearing on June 13. No attorney for Gottlieb was listed on court documents as of Tuesday.