Richard Towers (Santa Ana Police Dept.)

A 50-year-old man in California is accused of killing his 82-year-old mother who died after an ambulance removed her from the “hoarder-like” home where she was found in horrifically unsanitary conditions. Richard Tower was taken into custody on Monday and charged with one felony count of murder, one felony count of inflicting injury on an elder adult, and one felony enhancement of causing great bodily injury on an elder adult in the harrowing death of Shirley Towers, authorities announced.

According to a news release from the Orange County District Attorney’s Office, emergency medical personnel on Jan. 15 responded to a call at Richard Tower’s home after he called 911 and told the emergency operator that he was unable to wake his mother.

Authorities noted that Richard Towers had previously prevented law enforcement from having access to his mother, who was diabetic and required injections, when they attempted to conduct a welfare check on the residence in December 2023.

Upon arriving at the scene, first responders said they found the victim “covered in dried feces and bedsores, including a sore on her hip that left bone exposed.”

“The home’s floors were covered in urine and feces and hundreds of dead roaches and other bugs littered the refrigerator where the woman’s insulin was kept,” prosecutors wrote in the release, noting that the home also “did not have running water.”

Medical personnel rushed Shirley Towers to Kaiser Permanente Orange County — Irvine Medical Center for treatment where doctors said they observed seven separate pressure wounds across her body, all of which would have taken “weeks to develop.” By the time she arrived at the facility, doctors diagnosed Shirley Towers as being in septic shock.