Three employees accused of negligence after 89-year-old woman found dead outside Colorado Springs nursing home

Three employees have been accused of negligence after a 89-year-old woman was found dead lying on a bench in subfreezing temperatures earlier this year outside a now-shuttered Colorado Springs nursing home, police announced Thursday.

Rosalie Warren, a 52-year-old nurse, was issued a summons on suspicion of negligent death of Margarita Sam, who police say wandered outside of Union Printers Home at 101 S. Union Blvd. in February. An autopsy found that the 89-year-old died of hypothermia.

Further details on the allegations against Warren were not available and her arrest affidavit was sealed per a judge's order.

Warren, along with two nursing assistants, Asia Murray, 35, and Taquenis Eldridge, 31, also face allegations of neglecting an at-risk person, according to police.

Police, the Colorado Medicaid Fraud Control Unit in the Colorado Attorney General's Office have investigated the death.

The facility was forced to close and more than 100 seniors scrambled to find alternate housing amid a pandemic after the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment suspended its license in March. The suspension was prompted by a complaint about Sam's death, but followed a long-history of noncompliance with state health regulations.

Though the coroner's office found hypothermia to be Sam's leading cause of death, a federal report accused the nursing home for failing to adequately supervise her — even after she suffered a "significant mental status change," a fall and a hospital visit, only days before her death.

Andrew Bryant, who is representing Warren, declined to comment and no attorneys were listed in online court records for Murray or Eldridge.

The case will be prosecuted by the Colorado Attorney General's Office.