Nancy won’t leave

Grace knew she wasn’t supposed to have guests stay longer than one week, at the retirement place where she lives in Vista. But she wanted to help her daughter. Sixty years ago, she named her precious daughter Nancy Joy — and she was a joy, for many years.

But lately 89-year-old Grace and her 60-year-old daughter were having troubles. Mom suspected that her daughter was not sipping juice in that cup she held, while they watched television. Grace thought there was alcohol in that cup. She wondered if that was why things kept getting worse and worse, since her daughter first moved in, back in February.

San Diego Sheriff’s deputy Kyle Klein responded to a call and was sent to Arcadia Place, a small, well-tended senior facility. The deputy met Grace at her home on a sunny Monday morning in July. “She called because some of her jewelry was stolen,” the deputy remembered later. He spoke to a judge in court two weeks later, on August 8, 2017.

Deputy Klein said the door was opened by an elderly, fragile lady who took his arm while they walked slowly around her small apartment. He estimated Grace at about 5 feet 3 inches tall and perhaps 100 pounds. Sometimes the woman paused and leaned on a wall, while she caught her breath. Grace pointed to some hooks on one wall and told the deputy that was where her necklaces usually hung. She explained that she had collected some valuable pieces of jewelry over her lifetime, just a few expensive ones, and whoever had taken those necklaces knew the good stuff because the cheap ones were left behind.

The deputy said he noticed there was a walker and a motorized wheelchair in the apartment. And there was another woman there, sitting on a couch watching television. The deputy asked Grace about this other woman. “She said, ‘Nancy is my daughter. How do I get her to move out?’” Deputy Klein particularly remembered this conversation later, for the judge.

Grace told the deputy that she had asked Nancy to leave, but her daughter refused, and then she informed mom how difficult it is to evict a roommate in the state of California. So mom was looking for advice from the deputy — who did agree that it might not be easy, and that it might even be necessary to get help in court.

As they talked, the deputy learned details of the difficulties between mother and daughter. Grace said she is diabetic, and claimed that her specially prepared food that was delivered for her was often eaten by her daughter. Grace said she had lost about 50 pounds since Nancy moved in.

And they reportedly fought over her prescription drugs; Grace claimed her daughter would not give her meds to her.

The fragile lady showed the deputy a bruise on her wrist, she said that was from the time Nancy hit her with the television remote.

“Nancy bullied her in her own home,” the deputy concluded, after listening to Grace. “She was kinda afraid of Nancy.” The deputy understood from the elder woman, “She got to the point she would just stay in her own room.”

Grace told the deputy that she became so fearful that she barricaded her bedroom door at night, she used her metal walker or another sturdy object to block the door so that she could sleep.

The 89-year-old woman confided that she feared her daughter might have drug or alcohol problems. Nancy does have a prior criminal record for petty theft.

But Grace did not want her daughter to be in any kind of trouble. She never accused Nancy of taking her jewelry. Mom just wanted her 60-year-old daughter to find another place to live, and she had even hired someone to drive Nancy around so she could look for a new place.

Nancy Joy Grandis, 60, was arrested and removed from the apartment. She is now staying at Las Colinas women’s jail in Santee, until she can come up with $100,000 bail. The judge ordered Nancy to answer one felony count of elder abuse, and set the next court date for September 5. Nancy Joy Grandis pleads not-guilty.