DENVER (KDVR) — The son of a woman found covered in maggots in an Arvada home’s garage has pleaded guilty in connection with her death, alongside his girlfriend, officials announced Monday.
Brian Lee Seitz, 38, and his girlfriend, Laura Pratts, 55, pleaded guilty to negligent death of an at-risk person for their roles in the death of 59-year-old Sheryl Seitz, who was Brian’s mother.
The pair had been Sheryl’s caretakers for several years, according to the First Judicial District Attorney’s Office, with Brian beginning to be paid as her caregiver in November 2017 and Pratts since September 2019. Sheryl suffered from severe arthritis and chronic pain and required assistance from others to move, the attorney’s office said in a release.
On April 29, 2024, first responders arrived at an Airbnb in Arvada for a report of a woman who required urgent medical care. At the Airbnb, officials found Sheryl lying on an air mattress in the garage, nonverbal. She was taken to Lutheran Hospital for treatment, where she died 21 hours later.
While at the hospital, medical staff discovered Sheryl was extensively injured, including advanced bed sores, hip fractures, a “loosely connected wrist,” ulcers and septic shock.
Jefferson County Forensic Pathologist Dr. John Carver determined Sheryl’s death was a homicide caused by complications of neglect stemming from prolonged immobility caused by rheumatoid arthritis and bilateral femoral neck fractures, along with medical complications that included ulcers, the maggot infestation and burrowing, cellulitis and sepsis.
FOX31 spoke with Brian exclusively when he was at the Jefferson County Jail in May 2024. In that interview, Brian told FOX31’s Vicente Arenas that he had taken his mother to the Airbnb from the RV storage park, where he lived with Pratts, in an attempt to clean her up before seeking additional help.
Brian told Arenas that his mother faced a number of medical issues and had been bedridden for the year prior to his arrest. Brian said that his mother would not let the pair of caregivers touch her, which is why there were maggots on her body.
“Yes we were we were trying to, but she wouldn’t allow us to take the blankets off of her after a certain amount of time she didn’t want us to touch her,” Brian said. “I didn’t tell her she had to do anything because that’s my mom. She was of sound mind. I let her make her own choices. I offered to call an ambulance for her every day and I offered to get her help every day.”
Brian also told Arenas that he had tried to get help for his mother a few months earlier, in December.
Brian pleaded guilty on Sept. 19 to negligent death of an at-risk person. Pratts pleaded guilty to the same charge on Nov. 14. Both parties agreed as part of the case resolution that Brian and Pratts were either acting as principals or as complicators and were criminally negligent in their care of Sheryl.
“The factual basis includes failure to properly care for pressure sores, failure to maintain her personal hygiene and delaying necessary medical attention,” the attorney’s office stated.
Under the plea deal, all other charges were dismissed. The prosecutors did not agree to any sentencing concessions, and a judge sentenced Brian to serve 10 years in the Department of Corrections, followed by three years of parole. Pratts is scheduled to be sentenced in the case on Dec. 23, and faces a sentencing range from probation up to 12 years in the Department of Corrections.