A St. John’s Lutheran Community employee is charged with slapping a resident with dementia in the face and calling him vulgar names at the facility’s nursing home on Fountain Lake last month.

Samantha Elizabeth Weldon, 23, faces one charge of disorderly conduct by a caregiver against a vulnerable adult, a gross misdemeanor.

Weldon has not yet appeared on the charge but is slated to make her first appearance Aug. 29 in Freeborn County District Court.

According to court records, another employee at the facility captured a recording of Weldon using obscenities directly toward the victim as she and the employee were helping clean him.

The resident can be heard telling Weldon to “get off me” and appears distraught, and Weldon reportedly continues taunting him with “Why” and “What’s your problem,” as he keeps repeating, “get off me.”

“The defendant then taunts the vulnerable adult with, ‘Do you think you’ve got a hole in your brain?’” and then states, “I think that if you knew what was going on, you’d be more appreciative.”

The other employee reportedly told police Weldon had slapped the resident on both sides of his face the day before the video was recorded, asking him how he liked it.

When interviewed by police, Weldon reportedly acknowledged she was a caregiver for the resident and noted he has dementia and problematic behaviors.

“She agreed that it was inappropriate for her to call a patient names and to use vulgar language with a patient and acknowledged that it would be normal for this to cause alarm in a person,” court documents state.

She said she didn’t remember slapping him and did not remember asking him if he had a hole in his head. She admitted to calling him names but didn’t recall calling him some of the names heard in the recording because she said that wouldn’t be professional bedside manner.

 

See what happened last night in the PM report here.