A hospice worker in Iowa found out her fate after letting her elderly patient rot in her own filth, moving the woman “once a day” while she was stuck.
Audrey Engler was sentenced to serve more than 10 years in the Iowa Correctional Institution for Women for the crime, according to Des Moines County court records reviewed by Law & Crime. The sentence includes the time he has served in prison.
Engler, 25, was also ordered to pay a $1,500 fine. However, the court finally agreed to suspend the fine”[b]as the Defendant’s financial circumstances have been reviewed.”
Engler pleaded guilty during a court hearing in February to willful abuse of the elderly resulting in serious injury. He entered a plea after being indicted in December 2025 and was placed in the Des Moines County Correctional Facility in Burlington, Iowa.
The unnamed elderly woman’s mattress caught fire five months ago and she was hospitalized before being moved to a nursing home in July 2025, according to her criminal complaint. Engler was assigned to care for the victim by a home care company, Vibrance Homecare, which was paid for her continued care.
The old woman paid her rent and bills, and it is said that she asked her case manager to buy her clothes, saying “all her money went to Engler.”
The woman died on August 14, 2025, and the Burlington Police Department began an investigation into her death the next day. The investigators finally found out that the woman was not receiving the medicine, and Engler also encouraged the nurse to reduce her visits to the woman because she insisted that the patient was “being cared for properly”.
However, authorities said the house was so dirty and “full of things on the floor” that “one could not find a place to sit or stand.”
Officials also said in this complaint that the woman “burned her back, has sores on her buttocks, sores on the bed.” [and] a full catheter bag” at the time of his death, while it was also found that he was “even sitting in the stool” at one point.
Police said the women texted Engler when she needed something, although it was found that the doorman often “didn’t respond for hours.”
When speaking to authorities during the investigation, Engler admitted to shaking the woman “once a day.” She also admitted that she “could have taken better care of her elderly dependent and could have been more attentive and compassionate,” according to the complaint.
