Inset: Body camera footage showing nursing home staffer Amber Henderson speaking to police officers (WKYC/Warrensville Heights Police Department/YouTube). Background: The Ohio nursing home where Alvera Meuti "froze to death" after walking out a door that closed and locked behind her (WKYC/YouTube).
An Ohio nursing home let an 84-year-old woman walk out of the facility through an "exit door" that closed and locked behind her, leading to her "freezing to death" on a patio and criminal charges for a nurse who was not properly trained, a lawsuit says.
Alvera Meuti was at the Avenue at Warrensville Care and Rehabilitation Center in Cleveland when she disappeared from her room on the night of Dec. 23, 2024, according to a legal complaint filed by Meuti's family in Cuyahoga County.
A nurse at the facility, Amber Henderson, is facing a felony count of involuntary manslaughter in connection with Meuti's death. She is named in the family's complaint as a defendant, along with the rehabilitation center, for her alleged failure to report Meuti's disappearance and provide her with "proper" and "adequate" supervision, the filing says.
"At 9:30 p.m. on December 23, 2024, Henderson visited Alvera's room and Alvera was not there. Yet no report was made and no action was taken to locate Alvera," the complaint alleges. "Additional checks should have been made to check for, locate, or to notify Alvera's family that she was missing, which did not occur."
Meuti's family says that near Alvera's room was an exit door that was "left unlocked" and had no keypad or alarm, which "should have been present" to stop a resident from exiting "without notice or an alarm sounding," the complaint says.
"On the morning of December 24, 2024, Alvera was found on a patio outside the facility near the area she exited and near a door that locked behind her, with no ability to re-enter," the complaint explains. "Alvera died from hypothermia as she froze to death."
In a March 2025 press release, the Cuyahoga County Prosecutor's Office described how Henderson "assumed Alvera left the facility with her family and continued her shift." It wasn't until three hours later that she allegedly began thinking something happened.
"Later that night, around 12:36 a.m., after not seeing Alvera, Henderson attempted to call Alvera's family to check if she was with them," the press release said. "The family did not answer, and Henderson continued her shift. The next morning, around 6:30 a.m., Henderson told her supervisor she had not seen Alvera her entire shift, and a 'Code Purple' was called."
The Warrensville Heights Police Department was called to the facility and around 8 a.m., "other nurses" found Alvera outside on the patio "lying on her back," according to the prosecutor's office. She was transported to a local hospital and pronounced dead upon her arrival.
An investigation by WHPD later revealed that Henderson was allegedly not qualified to work at the nursing home and the facility was not properly secured.
"Every new nurse receives four weeks of training — which includes what to do if a resident is missing. It is also required for the nurses to check the residents every two hours," the prosecutor's office said. "Throughout the course of her shift, Henderson falsified completing several tasks that were required to be administered to Alvera. In addition, every door should have a keypad and be locked. There was an unlocked door near Alvera's room that led to a staircase and the patio where Alvera was found. The door locks from the outside, making it impossible for Alvera to go back inside."
Meuti's family members blame her injuries and death on Henderson and the nursing home's "failure to ensure that the facility was properly staffed and that the facility was properly secured to protect and meet the needs of its residents." They allege that the center has a history of "inadequately staffing and/or training its employees" at the expense of its residents' care, which ultimately led to what happened to Meuti.
"The lack of staff, training, and keeping the facility properly secured resulted in Alvera not being checked on, her absence not being promptly addressed, leaving the facility through an unlocked door, and not being able to re-enter the facility which caused Alvera's injury and resulted to her freezing to death," the family's complaint concludes.
Henderson's criminal case has a pretrial hearing set for Jan. 27. She has pleaded not guilty, with her lawyer telling local Fox affiliate WJW, "She did nothing wrong. I will vigorously defend her."
Lawyers and representatives for Avenue at Warrensville Care and Rehabilitation Center could not be reached for comment on Sunday by Law&Crime. They told WJW they had no comment when reached last week.