Background: A section of the 100 block of Pickwick Place in Millersville, Pa. (Google Maps). Inset: Elissa Blair Waltman (Millersville Borough Police Department).
A woman is accused of shoving her mother during an argument at the older woman's Pennsylvania home, causing her to fall down a staircase to her death.
Elissa Blair Waltman, 34, has been charged with involuntary manslaughter and simple assault in the death of her mother, 63-year-old Eileen Flugrath. The defendant is being held at the Lancaster County Prison without bail.
On the morning of April 5, Flugrath was at her home on the 100 block of Pickwick Place in Millersville, Pennsylvania, a borough about 80 miles west of Philadelphia. According to the Millersville Borough Police Department, Waltman was also there, though she lived in a separate home in the area about 4 miles away.
Police said that at about 10:30 a.m., they were called to the mother's home and entered "to find Flugrath injured and bleeding at the bottom of the staircase." They also "found an indentation in the wall at the top of the stairs that an eyewitness said was not there before."
Investigators spoke with Waltman, who reportedly said that she and her mother had been arguing "when Flugrath backed up and fell down the stairs on her own." The defendant denied that she touched her mother during the argument, claiming she only yelled at her.
As the investigation continued, however, she allegedly conceded to "having pushed" her mother, "causing her to fall into the wall and then down the staircase." A resident on the building's bottom floor told authorities "they heard a crash" and then found Flugrath "face-down at the base of the stairs."
Waltman was apparently at the top of the steps "cursing and immediately claimed that she never touched Flugrath," police said the witness told them.
Flugrath was taken to an area hospital, where she died four days later.
Waltman was later arrested, with authorities accusing her of "pushing her 63-year-old mother into a wall, causing her to fall down a flight of stairs to her death." The defendant was arraigned on Thursday, when her bail was denied.
She is scheduled to return to court for a preliminary hearing on June 23.