BY THOMAS DAIL
A Moore County jury took about four hours to acquit a former Moore County group home employee of charges stemming from the death of a resident last year.
Showanda McKoy had been charged with felony patient abuse and neglect in connection with the death of Mary Lynnette Martin, who was the only resident of a Preferred Alternatives group home in Aberdeen.
McKoy began sobbing when the jury announced its verdict around 10:30 a.m. Tuesday. She left the courtroom and could not be reached for comment.
“We’re grateful and pleased with the jury’s attention and consideration of Ms. McKoy’s case,” said her defense attorney, David Crockett, after the trial ended.
Judith Conway, the jury forewoman, told The Pilot that the jurors did not feel that the evidence proved that McKoy was responsible for causing the injuries that led to Martin’s death.
“We do not feel that he (prosecutor Tony Berk) proved beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant was guilty of these charges,” she said.
After closing arguments by the defense and the prosecution, the jury deliberated for about an hour before asking to look at some of the evidence in the case, including Martin’s medical records, employee statements and a notebook of “adverse incident reports.”
“We asked to review some of the evidence to help us make our decision,” Conway said.
Berk said that although he did not get a guilty verdict, it was still important for him to try this case.
“I think we had a problem from the start, but I think that it was worth doing,” Berk said.
Evidence during the trial showed that Preferred Alternatives, a Fayetteville-based company that contracted with Sandhills Center for Mental Health, Developmental Disability and Substance Abuse Services to provide a residential setting for Martin, ordered employees of the group home to change incident reports and other forms. The residential services company also hired employees who had been investigated on allegations of abuse that resulted in their losing previous jobs, including McKoy.
McKoy’s previous employer, a company called RHA, was investigating McKoy on allegations of abuse, Berk said. But that was not presented to the jury in her trial, nor was the fact that at the time that the Sandhills Center referred Martin to Preferred Alternatives, Jim Elliot, whose name is on the company’s incorporation papers, was on the Sandhills Center’s Area Board.
The trial centered on what happened at the group home between 11:05 p.m. on Oct. 26, 1999 and 7 a.m. the next day, when county paramedics were called to the home and found Martin unconscious. She was taken to FirstHealth Moore Regional Hospital, where she was diagnosed with a subdural hematoma — bleeding inside the cranium that caused a terminal coma. She died six weeks later.
McKoy gave differing accounts to Aberdeen police, the county Department of Social Services and her employer about the events the night before and the morning Martin was taken to the hospital.
In December, she told Aberdeen Police Lt. Mike Conner that before Martin went to bed that night, Martin attacked her with a urine-soaked hand in her bedroom. McKoy told Conner that she grabbed Martin’s wrist with one hand and put her other hand on Martin’s chest.
McKoy told Conner that she “pushed” Martin back into the bathroom, where Martin fell and hit her head on the floor.
During the trial, McKoy said that she did not push Martin and that Martin did a “fake fall” — something she has done before during her “behaviors.”
After the fall, she told Conner that Martin’s speech was slurred. During the trial, she testified that Martin was using her mumbling voice, a shift from the aggressive voice that she had been using.
In her statement to police, McKoy said she put Martin to bed and when she checked on her just before 6 a.m. the next day, she heard “gurgling” in Martin’s breathing. She called 911.
On Monday, McKoy answered questions about missing linen and the clean condition of the house, in which she had told investigators that Martin had thrown feces at her, urinated on the bed, gotten into a shower wearing pajamas and walked down the hall soaking wet. She told the jury that she had cleaned the house after she had put Martin to bed. She put Martin’s wet bed sheets in plastic bag, which was never recovered.
Detective Dan Wilson, investigating the case, found no evidence of the cleanup, like the mop used to clean the kitchen floor where McKoy said the feces had landed.
On Monday afternoon, Martin’s mother, Ileine Morris, said that no one apart from McKoy and Martin knows what really happened that night.
“The real tragedy is that only two people know what really happened in that house,” Morris said. “And one of those people is not here to testify.”