In Texas, 20 people who died in questionable conditions at illegal healthcare facilities in the last two years are being looked into to see if they were killed. According to an email from Tim Ciesco, a spokeswoman for the Arlington Police Department, 49-year-old Regla “Su” Becquer was charged with murder in the death of 60-year-old Steven Kelly Pankratz.
As the owner of the illegal healthcare company. At a news conference on Wednesday, Arlington police said they are looking more closely at the deaths of 19 other clients who died at one of Becquer’s five unlicensed facilities. An autopsy showed that Pankratz died of “mixed drug toxicity,” which led to the murder charge being brought against Becquer on January 12. Detectives told the press that the drugs were painkillers and sleep aids.
After going through his medical records for a long time, Det. Crystalline Robinson said it was clear that the drugs he had in his blood had never been prescribed by a doctor or used in any surgery he had.
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Investigators say Pankratz’s family noticed that his health seemed to get worse as soon as he joined Becquer’s facility. He owns the business Love and Caring for People Inc. The buildings were spread out in and around Dallas.
Police also told the press at the meeting that they are having the coroner look again at the autopsy of Karen Walker’s death in October 2022. Walker is said to have written a will 19 days before she died that gave Becquer her estate, which was worth more than $330,000 and included a house worth $223,000 and money in bank accounts worth $75,000. An interview with WFAA earlier this year by a family friend showed that Walker did have diabetes but was otherwise healthy.
The head of the mental health unit, Lt. Kimberly Harris, said, “We were very worried about what we saw in these homes, what we found, and what we had heard up to that point.” “I’m here to tell you today that’s only the beginning.”
Harris says Becquer would keep her clients from communicating with the outside world by taking away their phones and not giving them medical care. Police also think she stole from the people who lived in her house.
“Ms. Becquer and her company are accused of abuse, theft, and fraud,” said Kelly Land, a crisis intervention expert for the Arlington Police Department. “What we’ve heard from the clients and their families is upsetting, heartbreaking, and hard to imagine. We are dedicated to giving justice to the families and victims.”
Many of the 20 victims have been burned, buried, or had their bodies given to science, which makes things even more complicated, Ciesco said.
Police first arrested Becquer in February on charges of abandonment and endangerment after they said she abused a woman in a wheelchair who had cerebral palsy.
The woman told WFAA, “I was held against my will.”
On a $1.5 million bond, Becquer is still in the Tarrant County Jail.
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