Overview:
The family of Marco Aurelio Corral want to know why and how he died from “complications related to blunt force trauma.”
Marco Aurelio Corral, a resident of a care home in Visalia for adults with disabilities, died from abuse and assault, his family alleges.
“He was kicked to death,” said his sister Maria Corral Rocha of San Diego. “I believe Marco died of criminal negligence.”
Visalia police said the Violent Crimes Unit is investigating Corral’s death that occurred late last year.
The California Department of Social Services, the agency that licenses the Adult Residential Facility where Corral lived, said it is also investigating the circumstances of Corral’s death. Details aren’t available because “complaint investigations remain confidential while the investigation is ongoing,” the department said.
Since Corral’s death, officials have made several visits to the home. Last month, officials told senior managers that the facility’s license could be at stake.
Corral died Dec. 14, 2023. He was 56. He died at Kaweah Health hospital in Visalia after being taken there unconscious following several days of illness.
Corral’s sister said she spoke by phone with the care home’s administrator about an hour after her brother died.
“She said she did not know he had been taken to the hospital by ambulance or that he was ill,” Corral Rocha said.
The administrator soon resigned, according to Department of Social Services online records.
An autopsy was done by the Tulare County Sheriff-Coroner’s Department, which said it can’t release the autopsy report until Visalia police finish their investigation.
Meanwhile, “the detective is still waiting on some information regarding the investigation,” police spokeswoman Elizabeth Jones told Frensnoland.
‘I’ve been crying non-stop’
In April, a coroner’s investigator told Corral Rocha by phone that her brother died from “complications from blunt force trauma,” she said. The investigator also told her “it appears they kicked him to death. He had two broken ribs.”
Knowing that her disabled brother died violently while under the care of a group home is devastating, she said.
“I’ve been crying non-stop.”
Her brother lived in a four-bed care home operated by People’s Care, a division of Redwood Family Care Network in Southern California which operates group homes for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Neither People’s Care nor the parent company responded to inquiries from Fresnoland.
Her brother had cognitive and physical disabilities, and the staff told her that the other three residents at the People’s Care facility in Visalia were non-verbal, Corral Rocha said.
Corral Rocha is now the only surviving member of her immediate family. In the past four years, her three siblings and her mother have died; her father died many years ago.
Her brother Marco grew up in Mexico City, she said.
Their mother Eva Rocha grew up in Fresno, where she was a “heritage speaker” of Spanish. She found employment as a bilingual secretary at the American embassy in Mexico City. There, she met and married Jose Aurelio Corral, a Mexican citizen, and the couple had four children: Maria, Marco, Eva Stella and Francisco.
At age 5, Marco came down with a severe case of chickenpox that invaded his brain. Doctors in both Mexico and the United States said he would die, and the only hope for prolonging his life was to remove part of his brain. The surgery left him with permanent disabilities.
“It was similar to a major stroke,” his sister said. “He was no longer able to walk and talk.”
Remarkably, Corral learned to walk again, although with a limp, and became fully bilingual, she said.
“He was amazing,” she said through tears. “He was a phenomenal human being, a wise and enlightened soul. He liked being in nature, he loved to go fishing. He was a huge Oakland Raiders fan.”
As Corral entered his teens, it became clear that schools in Mexico City could not meet his needs, so when he was 15 his parents moved him to an institutional setting in central California, although the family remained living in Mexico. Three years later, the family relocated to California. Because their mother was an American citizen who worked for the United States government, the children were also U.S. citizens.
Corral lived at Porterville Developmental Center for several years, then moved into his own apartment in Fresno. In 2010, he returned to Porterville. By then, he was using a wheelchair full time because of poor balance, his sister said. In 2016, the state closed the general patient area at the Porterville center to cut costs, and patients were moved to group homes.
Corral ended up at People’s Care in Visalia, called People’s Care Damsen in official reports. The home is located on West Damsen Avenue in a residential neighborhood.
‘Why didn’t you take him to the hospital?’
Although his siblings lived outside the San Joaquin Valley, someone from the family would speak with him by phone twice a week, his sister said.
Corral Rocha, a social sciences professor in the California State University system, said she last visited her brother in January of 2023.
“They would roll him out in his wheelchair to the driveway,” she said. The staff didn’t want visitors to come inside, and the only time she entered the facility was to use a washroom, she said.
Her brother told her many times that the staff was abusive toward him, so she would make inquiries, she said.
“I was never accusatory because I was afraid they’d take it out on Marco,” she said. In her experience, she said, directly complaining rarely results in improvements to care.
“These companies make a lot of money,” she said. “The purpose is profit, not care.”
The Department of Social Services says any patient or family member who has concerns about quality of care, safety or any other issue at a licensed facility can call the complaint hotline, send an email or file a complaint online.
On the evening of Dec. 14, 2023, Corral Rocha got a call from a social worker, who said a doctor at Kaweah Health hospital in Visalia wanted to talk to her about her brother.
Worried, she called the hospital and finally reached the doctor.
“Your brother coded and we’re trying to revive him right now,” the doctor told her. “I said, ‘Please do not resuscitate. Please let him be in peace.’ He said [to colleagues] ‘DNR! DNR!’ – and everything was quiet.
“He said, ‘I’m so sorry.’ I said, ‘I’m sorry too’ and started crying. My whole life I’ve tried to be a good sister and take care of my brother.
“I asked the doctor what happened,” she said. “He said Marco was severely constipated and it looked like he was almost pregnant, and he had an infection that had gotten everywhere.
“I immediately called the house to talk to someone about how it happened, and a man named John said, ‘We could tell Marco wasn’t feeling well. He hadn’t been going to the bathroom for a while. We gave him a suppository.’ I asked, ‘Why didn’t you take him to the hospital?’
“He said, ‘I’m the one who called 911. He was not responsive.’ Not responsive!? Oh my goodness!”
‘Something was amiss’
At first, Corral Rocha did not suspect violence. But in early January, an employee of Hadley Funeral Home in Visalia called to obtain her consent to cremate her brother’s body.
“She said that someone came forward and triggered an investigation,” Corral Rocha said. “That’s when I knew something was amiss.”
When the investigation into her brother’s death began, both the coroner’s office and Visalia police asked her perfunctory questions about her brother’s medical history, she said. In April, the coroner’s office shared information with her about what happened, and the detective from the Visalia Police Department started showing more interest in the case, she said.
“He said it was terrible what happened to Marco,” she said.
The detective told her that police had talked to care home employees and may have found a witness, she said. The detective also told her the case had been turned over to the District Attorney’s Office for review.
Corral Rocha said she spoke by phone in late May with the detective and learned that the investigation remains active.
Meanwhile, the Community Care Licensing Division of the Department of Social Services has visited the care home several times since Corral’s death.
The licensing division has enforcement authority over community care facilities such as People’s Care Damsen, and conducts an annual inspection.
Five days after Corral died, an official made an unannounced visit and demanded patient records and staff work schedules.
Then on Jan. 13, another official conducted the required annual inspection. The official faulted the home for failing to be “clean, safe, sanitary and in good repair,” and ordered a deep cleaning and repairs. The official also ordered the home to buy a new bed for a resident.
On Jan. 17, the same official visited again because the home had “self-reported” that money belonging to residents had disappeared during the tenure of a previous administrator. The department demanded an audit and better record keeping, and told the company to reimburse the residents. People’s Care said it had made it clear from the beginning that it would do so, according to a staff report.
The financial impropriety did not surprise Corral’s sister. In November, she said, his aunt sent him a greeting card with an enclosed gift card. He got the greeting card but not the gift card.
On Feb. 12, two Department of Social Services representatives arrived unannounced after learning that a resident had not been given medication and pills were missing. While investigating, it was obvious that a resident needed to see a podiatrist, so the administrator was ordered to make an appointment with a podiatrist and get the staff trained in nail care. The department issued a Type A citation, reserved for “the most serious type of violations in which there is an immediate risk to the health, safety or personal rights of those in care.”
On the same visit, the officials noted that no new bed was in place as ordered. The staff assured officials that the bed had indeed been purchased and would be installed by week’s end, so they extended the deadline.
On March 19, two officials again made an unannounced visit after learning that two residents had reportedly not been given their medications, and that the home’s administrator had taken them to the hospital emergency room more than once to get the medications. The officials ordered the home to contract with a new pharmacy.
On April 30, a department official met with the care home’s administrator, the district manager and several employees. The official said if the state issues any more citations, the licensing division would consider taking “administrative action” – the first step toward revocation of license.
The care home has a long list of “issues”, the official said:
– instances of physical and verbal abuse
– medication errors
– missing medications
– missing client money
– insufficient qualifications for administrators and staff
– inadequate training
– failure to promptly seek dental or medical care
– improper storage of hazardous items
– lapses in criminal record clearances
– staff negligence in protecting clients
– late payment of license fees
– absence of care or inadequate care and supervision of residents
– deficiencies in physical infrastructure and fire safety
– issues with modified diets
– inadequate plans of operation
– personnel shortages and staffing inadequacies.
On May 9, a department official informed the district manager in person that a staff member, unnamed in the public report, had flunked a background check and must never be allowed on the property again. The district manager said the staff member in question had been removed on Dec. 23 and terminated Feb. 2.
Corral’s sister, who has a law degree and passed the state bar, said the state should put the facts of her brother’s case into a broader context.
“I have this intuition that this is just not a problem at People’s Care in Visalia but is a system problem,” she said. “I am not seeking monetary gain. I am seeking the opportunity to prevent this from happening to other people. The home needs to be investigated to make sure this never happens again.”
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