A former Kentucky woman, now living in Michigan is accused of locking her handicapped sister in a closet for years while collecting the victim’s benefits.
Candy Lawson, 44, was arrested last week, charged with vulnerable adult abuse, false imprisonment, and embezzlement.
According to police in Corunna, Michigan, last month, a tip from a handyman led officers to Lawson’s 42-year-old deaf, mute sister locked in a closet in the suspect’s home. Officers said the victim, who communicates only in writing, had been locked up for six or seven years with little food, water, or clothing and only a bucket for a bathroom. She weighed just 74 pounds.
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“The stench was just unreal, walking up the stairs,” said Chief Nick Chiros with the Corunna Police Department. “Once she was transported to the hospital, she was continually asking for food.”
Lawson had moved to Michigan from Kentucky, about a year ago. Investigators said it’s possible that the abuse started while she lived in Kentucky, at a home on Saint John’s Road in Franklin County.
Lawson owned a tattoo shop in Frankfort, Candy’s Body Art, where she worked closely with Raymond Russell.
“We were family pretty much. I still feel like we’re family,” Russell told LEX 18’s Josh Breslow. “The sister, as far as I’d known, had never been there. I’d never seen her there.. and every time she ever talked about her sister, it was always ‘I have to go to Michigan to be with my sister’.”
Franklin County Sheriff Pat Melton told LEX 18 that his office was contacted Friday by someone trying to locate information on Lawson’s brother. Melton said that brother died of a heart attack in 2009.
Lawson has no previous criminal history in Franklin County other than some traffic violations.
