Background: Bodycam footage taken at the home of Deborah Valentine (Del City Police Department). Inset: Duane Valentine (Oklahoma County Detention Center).
An Oklahoma man is out on bond after being accused of neglecting his mother to death.
Duane Valentine, 52, called authorities after finding his mother, 70-year-old Deborah Valentine, unresponsive in her bedroom on Feb. 17. But after officers from the Del City Police Department responded to the home, they were faced with the grisly discovery that the older woman was surrounded by trash, rats, and human waste. Police questioned Duane Valentine, who allegedly told officers that he had last spoken to his mother about three days prior.
The day after that call, he went to check on her and claimed that she was sleeping. One day later, she was not waking up.
Body camera footage from the Del City Police Department obtained by Law&Crime shows officers searching through the house, which was covered in wall-to-wall trash. According to reporting by local NBC affiliate KFOR, police wrote that the bed where Deborah Valentine lay was covered in two feet of trash and surrounded by rodents. Human waste was found on several items, police said.
One officer can be heard telling another officer, "There's, like, 20 rats eating on this lady."
The discovery led officers to suspect Deborah Valentine had been dead longer than her son claimed. When officers questioned Duane Valentine, he allegedly said he had lived in his mother's home for the past nine years and served as her caretaker. He said his mother became bedridden two or three months earlier, and fell ill the Thursday before he found her unresponsive.
Duane Valentine allegedly told the officers, "Like I said, she's been really sick, and she's just been sleeping."
One officer said to another officer at the scene, "She's, like, sunk into the bed, a mouse was eating on her face when I came in."
Family members eventually arrived at the scene and asked him why he had never called them. He claimed, "I didn't know, bud. I didn't. I didn't think she was gone."
At the station, Duane Valentine told an officer, "I didn't kill my mother, alright? My mother was stubborn, didn't like to be messed with when she sleeps."
Duane Valentine was eventually charged with second-degree murder and abuse by a caretaker. Police also confirmed that the Oklahoma Bureau of Investigation was looking into suspicions of financial abuse by Duane Valentine. After being booked into the Oklahoma County Detention Center, Duane Valentine was released with conditions after posting $50,000 bond. He is currently not in custody but is wearing a GPS monitor. His arraignment is scheduled for March 19.