80-Year-Old Wife Puts Husband in Junkyard

By KAREN ARAIZA

Updated 12:45 PM EST, Mon, Nov 2, 2009

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Delaware State Police

A jury has convicted an 80-year-old Wilmington, Del. woman of abusing her 82-year-old husband by forcing him to live at the family junkyard with a pot for bathing and couch to sleep on.

Shirley M. Wilson told jurors she pulled her husband, who was a stroke victim, out of nursing home and set him up in a backroom of their office at the junkyard so he could "come home and get to work," according to The News Journal.

Wilson represented herself. Last week's trial lasted three days and then jurors convicted Wilson of elderly abuse.

Don Wilson was found lying on the couch in a soiled diaper and pajama top in late March when a Delaware State Police trooper went to the scrapyard to investigate a theft report. The victim had bed sores, was dirty, malnourished, dehydrated and suffering from dementia, according to court testimony. He was supposed to be getting around-the-clock care.

Shirley Wilson said her husband was as bad off as everyone made it seem and that she had expected to see him in court for the trial.

"I don't know about this mental capacity stuff. You people should see my husband," she told jurors.

Prosecutors said Wilson had plenty of assets, but refused to pay for her ailing husband's care. Shirley Wilson faces up to 10 years in prison. She'll be sentenced in January.