Out of the four teenagers who could likely be charged with alleged abuse at Good Samaritan Society in Albert Lea, two would have clearly been adults the time of the incidents, Freeborn County Attorney Craig Nelson said Friday. These two are the focus of his investigation.

Nelson told the Tribune the birthdates of the five teenage nursing assistants who were under investigation by authorities.

Out of the five teenagers, four are now 18 and one is 19 and all live in greater Albert Lea, he said. All would have gone to Albert Lea High School.

He would not specify which teenagers’ birthdates corresponded with the four girls who a Minnesota Department of Health report concluded were involved in verbal, sexual and emotional abuse of residents at the nursing home in Albert Lea.

He also would not release the names of the alleged perpetrators. He said he needs to file charges before their names can be released.

“My position at this time is to continue to read these two documents together and to confirm information that is common between the two of them that I might be able to use at the time of a criminal trial and for the basis of charges,” Nelson said.

He is “a ways away from being able to charge the Good Sam cases,” he said.

“I need to have my ducks in a row in a fashion that I can have a clear handle on everything from the get-go.”

Nelson said he anticipates that the case will be a hard one to prove beyond a reasonable doubt in court because of how many different stories the alleged perpetrators told authorities and because of the lack of concrete evidence and actual witnesses.

All of the investigation taken together in total is obscure, he said, with much vagueness in some parts.

“The level of how this could have happened,” Nelson said. “They obviously did not have empathy for the people they saw. They didn’t know what they were like before the Alzheimer’s or the dementia — that they were capable, contributing, even outstanding members of the community.”

The four girls the Department of Health identified in its report are no longer employed at the nursing home. The fifth girl was also fired from the nursing home for unrelated circumstances.