Woman sentenced to probation in Brandon group home abuse

A 47-year-old woman who severely bruised a Brandon Township group home resident nearly a year ago has been sentenced to two years of probation.
Crystal Charlotte Overall was sentenced by Sixth Judicial Circuit Court Judge Shalina D. Kumar on March 11.
Overall, a Flint resident, had pleaded no contest on Feb. 5 to charges of vulnerable adult abuse, third degree, as well as felony habitual offender, second offense. Overall is to have no employment as a direct caregiver to disabled or elderly individuals.
According to police and Michigan Department of Human Services reports, on March 27, bruising was found on the inner thighs of a 26-year-old, severely mentally retarded resident of the Granger Home, an adult foster care group home on Granger Road where Overall was employed.
Employees of a Waterford school the resident attends found the very large purple and red bruises in which fingerprints were visible. According to reports, Overall told investigators she was giving the victim a shower the night of March 26 when he began falling off the shower chair. She grabbed him by the thighs to keep him from falling, she said, and admitted that she ‘applied too much pressure to his thighs.?
The home’s manager said in interviews she did not think the bruising could have been accidental and said the victim is very cooperative and also very small, about 4 feet in height and weighing only 68 pounds. Overall was terminated from the home, where she had been employed since June 2003.
Police learned Overall was previously suspended from the Seymour Lake Home in Oxford after a resident fell backward into a television and hurt her head.
Overall also has a previous criminal history. She had a felony fraud warrant from California in 2002 and had a count of perjury dismissed in furtherance of justice. She also has a felony conviction for fraud to obtain aid from 1995.
Records of group homes can be reviewed at the DHS website www.michigan.gov/dhslicensing.

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