Inset: Sandra Antolick (Porter County Jail). Background: Home in the 100 block of North Morgan Boulevard in Valparaiso, Indiana, where Antolick allegedly neglected her mother (Google Maps).
A 62-year-old Indiana woman allowed her 93-year-old mother to wither in a recliner until she died, suffering from bedsores "so deep they had reached the bone," cops allege.
Sandra Antolick is charged with neglect of a dependent in the death of her mother, JoAnne Antolick, in Valparaiso.
According to a probable cause affidavit obtained by Law&Crime, cops responded around 1:40 p.m. Sept. 16, 2025, to a home in the 100 block of North Morgan Boulevard for a deceased person call.
The defendant called 911 and said her mother was dead. Cops noted that they were met with a "malodorous" smell from rotting food, trash and mildew when they walked into the home.
They found the victim dead in a recliner. She was "nude and was covered with absorbent bed pads," cops wrote. Clutter as high as 5 feet tall covered most of the living room floor and blocked all the bedrooms and the second story, the arrest affidavit stated.
There was no running water in the home, and the refrigerator, which was not working, was filled with rotting food. The mother and daughter had lived in the home for only a month after being evicted from their previous apartment because it was too messy.
Sandra Antolick was her mother's sole caregiver for the last few years. She said she slept on the floor in the living room while her mother slept in the recliner, according to cops. She said her mother had not been to a doctor in years despite her failing health, officers wrote.
An autopsy determined that JoAnne Antolick had numerous bedsores throughout her body, including some that were "so deep they had reached the bone," the affidavit said. The sores would have caused the victim "a great deal of pain," doctors noted. She died from complications of the infected sores, cops said.
In subsequent interviews with police after being read her Miranda rights, Sandra Antolick claimed the bedsores were just a week old. But police determined that because the bedsores were large and bleeding heavily, they were much older than that.
The defendant said she would change her mother's dressings on a regular basis, but investigators say that was not working.
Cops also said she worked as a radiological technician at a local hospital for more than 25 years and would have known her mother badly needed medical attention. Yet she never called for help until the victim was already dead, police stated.
According to the defendant, her mother injured her arm in a recent fall. She compared her mother's injury to "a bird with an injured wing." JoAnne Antolick was unable to walk and she was difficult to move, her daughter allegedly told cops.
She said the victim had been vomiting in recent days but was able to eat, drink and talk, the affidavit stated. The defendant said her mother was alive the night before. She told cops that her mom vomited around 11:30 a.m. and "then stopped responding and passed away," cops wrote.
The defendant allegedly waited two hours to call the funeral home, which told her to dial 911. When asked about the delay, Sandra Antolick allegedly said she was "shocked."
But her phone call history suggests that the victim may have died hours earlier, cops said. Sandra Antolick made several phone calls around 3 a.m., which indicated that "there was a problem," detectives concluded.
One of those phone calls was to a co-worker who told police that she didn't answer because she was sleeping, but she returned the call around 8:30 a.m. The defendant allegedly told her co-worker that her mom had died and said that she "F'd up" and was "screwed." She also allegedly told the co-worker she "needed" everyone to say the time of death was around 11 or 11:30 a.m.
Cops arrested the defendant on Friday and took her to the Porter County Jail, where she remains on an $11,000 bond. Her next court date was not immediately listed.