Part 2: Criminal neglect, overlooked cruelty

State regulators missed several chances to uncover the abuse.

The first came in a complaint dated Aug. 6, 2002, three months after Reaching Out got its license. It concerned Arlene Klingler, placed in the home by the county mental-health agency.

In a letter to the welfare department, her daughter-in-law, Beth Klingler, wrote of finding Arlene, then 74, in a decrepit house on a weedy lot with a swimming pool half full of dirty water.

In the kitchen, she and her husband, Robert, found food and pill boxes on the counter and bugs crawling on the floor.

"I remember seeing holes in the doors and not much lighting. . . . I saw no one there that appeared or identified themselves as a caregiver," she wrote. "Bob was appalled by the fact that his mother was in this place."

Tina Fake phoned later and "was quite upset and hollering" because they had shown up unannounced, Beth Klingler wrote to regulators. Fake later sent a letter to the Lebanon County Area Agency on Aging accusing the Klinglers of being abusive.

The Klinglers' complaint led Rebecca F. Miller, a supervisor at the county mental-health agency, to stop placing clients with the Fakes. She also filed complaints with the welfare department and the county agency on aging.

At the welfare department, caseworker Kathryn Wilson-Rulli investigated the complaint by speaking to Tina Fake and the Klinglers on the phone. She didn't visit the home. Her report did not mention the concerns raised by the mental-health supervisor, and painted the matter as a dispute between Fake and an "abusive family."

"The complaint could not be substantiated," wrote Wilson-Rulli, who declined an Inquirer request for an interview.

A month later, Wilson-Rulli performed an annual inspection and found no deficiencies, granting a 12-month license.

A death and a cover-up

Dietz will never forget Tina Fake's bone-chilling shriek.

It was December 2003, and Fake was yelling at Stanley Bruzda, 74.

"You get your s- ass out of that bed now!" Dietz recalled Fake screaming.

"Tina, I can't move," he responded.

The night before, Bruzda had fallen down the stairs in a thunderous crash, Dietz told The Inquirer.

Instead of taking him to the hospital, Fake put him to bed. He woke up covered in his own feces.

"Fake was screaming at Bruzda to get up and get in the shower," Dipalo wrote.

Bruzda said he was having trouble breathing. An employee, Patricia Remlinger - who was charged as an accomplice but is cooperating with authorities - urged Fake to get the man to a hospital, noting that he may have a dislocated knee. Fake screamed back that he needed to be cleaned up first. "They aren't going to come back on me for neglect!" Remlinger quoted her as saying.