Inset: Allen Page (Maricopa County Sheriff's Office). Background: The house where Page's mother lived in Chandler, Ariz. (Google Maps).
An Arizona man is behind bars after allowing his octogenarian mother to waste away and die in her own waste and covered in insects, law enforcement in the Grand Canyon State says.
Allen Page, 64, stands accused of one count each of second-degree murder and vulnerable adult abuse over the death of 84-year-old Mary Elenz, according to the Chandler Police Department. He is also charged with four counts of misconduct involving weapons.
The course of the mother's and son's lives came to a head on Sept. 18, 2025, when the defendant called a hospice, police said.
The next day, staff from the Hospice of the Valley evaluated the woman at her home and found her in "extremely poor physical and living conditions," according to a police report obtained by Arizona's Family.
The woman was unresponsive and died the next day, police said.
On Monday, Page appeared in court, the independent TV station reported.
Additional details about the allegations against him were relayed during that court appearance as well as in an affidavit and probable cause statement obtained by Law&Crime.
The first nurse to arrive said Elenz had soiled blankets stuck to her skin, according to a charging document. There were also flies circling above the victim and fleas "hopping" on the bed, police said.
When the nurse tried to touch or shake Elenz, the woman did not respond, according to the charging document.
"The nurse observed that the areas of [the woman's] skin that were not covered by feces or blankets appeared mottled and pale," the affidavit reads.
The parts of the victim's skin touching the mattress also had open wounds and were infested with maggots, the nurse said.
"When the nurse tried to peel the blankets back to get at a look at [the woman] they were stuck to her with live maggots coming out of [the woman's] skin," the charging document goes on. "Every crevice or surface of the skin touching the mattress seemed to have open wounds and maggots. She could not get the blanket to come unstuck from skin. The nurse realized this was not something she could do on her own."
That's when the nurse called for help.
Eventually, a group of hospice staffers transported the woman to the facility. Elenz was cleaned up, diagnosed with protein-calorie malnutrition, and then died in the hospice on Sept. 20, 2025.
In an ensuing interview with law enforcement, the nurse, through tears, said the woman's condition was "the most horrific thing I've ever seen in my life," according to the charging document.
All the while, Page allegedly had other concerns.
"Allen's phone sent over 70 outgoing messages in the hours before the hospice nurse arrived," the charging document reads. "Very nearly all of them were related to sexting."
On one occasion, the son said his mother was "fine," according to the charging document.
The nurse also had some thoughts about the son.
"She described [Page] as awkward, avoidant, and making excuses during her visit," the affidavit continues. "She also said he seemed irritated when asked for clean water, towels, and other items to clean [the woman]."
At the time, the medical examiner listed Elenz's cause of death as pneumonia complicated by skin wounds. Initially, the manner of death was deemed to be "undetermined."
As the investigation went on, however, authorities determined Page had not been employed since 2022 and was using his mother's Social Security income on himself, according to the affidavit.
Police specified Page "spent an inordinate amount of time engaged in viewing internet pornography and communicating with purported women online" and was often "spending money on" numerous gift cards for "people he had never met who sent him nude images."
"This activity was evidently occurring for hours at a time while Allen was in the same home where [the woman's] condition was worsening to the point observed by hospice staff," the affidavit goes on. "[T]hese relationships included the people or personas he was communicating with asking him for money, often in forms of gift cards."
Page's wife told police that her husband was his mother's "primary caregiver" but had stopped caring for her roughly a month before she died, according to the charging document. The wife added that "she did not know when" her husband had last changed his mother's diaper.
The charging document elaborates:
[The wife] said, "The biggest problem was Allen changing her" and "He had a very big problem changing her." She…suggested Allen was embarrassed because he was not able to bring himself to change his mother's diaper. She stated Allen as the sole person responsible for changing [the woman's] diaper. Regarding diaper changes, she said he was doing it "Some" but "Not enough."
Page is detained in the Maricopa County Jail on $1 million cash-only bail.