By Fallan Patterson
Staff Writer

When confessed killer Steven H. Bronson had his first degree murder charge dropped and was released from the Osceola County Jail in June to be placed in a St. Petersburg nursing home, his victim’s family knew justice was going to have to be served another way.

Using social media and word-of-mouth, the family hopes to garner support for legislation that would require nursing home patients’ criminal histories to be disclosed to other patients and their families. An online petition is available at www.change.org. Norma’s Nursing Home Law is designed to honor St. Cloud housewife Norma Thomas Page, 28, who Bronson confessed to killing in June 21, 1979 after DNA linked him in 2010 to the crime. Due to a series of strokes in 2003, Bronson was found incompetent to stand trial by several mental health professionals and successfully petitioned the Fifth District Court of Appeal to release him on his own recognizance last month.

Before Bronson’s placement in the Baywood Nursing Center in St. Petersburg, Page’s three sisters and a cousin decided to raise awareness and support for state legislation that would require criminal background checks to be conducted on incoming nursing home patients. The information would then be disclosed to patients and their families to help determine the best placement for their loved ones.

“When you don’t know something, you’re not accountable,” Cheryl Hickman, Page’s cousin, said from her home in Kentucky. “Legislators and nursing home administrators are responsible to protect the public.”

Kay Myers, one of Page’s sisters, cited expert opinions that in the year 2025, experts have warned there will be 40 percent increase – known as the “Silver Tsunami” – in number of nursing home patients, mainly due to Alzheimer Disease. Due to this influx, Myers is more concerned than ever about the aging population.

“Every nursing home resident deserves a safe place to live. They should not be forced by the courts to share their home with violent criminals, especially confessed murderers,” she said. “As Baby Boomers near retirement age, America is experiencing a nursing home shortage. Nursing homes should not have to take on added responsibility of caring for violent criminals.”

Hickman cited a 2004 Jacksonville case where a new resident with more than 50 prior convictions raped a comatose 77-year-old woman inside the nursing home. Neither the staff nor the patient’s family had been made aware of his record.

“If you were going to bring renters into your home with you, you’d want to know their background,” Hickman said. “They should know who they’re living with. Nobody thinks of it. I didn’t think of it until (Norma’s) case.”

Before Bronson’s arrest in December 2010, he lived for seven years at Avante at St. Cloud nursing home on Kansas Avenue.  

Marty Casper, vice president of operations for Avante Centers, which runs 22 nursing homes and rehabilitation centers in Florida, North Carolina and Virginia, said he had never considered releasing criminal information on patients to other patients and their families and that disclosure is not routinely done.

“I wouldn’t divulge the information unless required by law. However, I have no objection to it,” he said. “I would like to know that someone had done a serious crime.”

The St. Cloud facility has housed a registered sex offender since 2009, information not readily supplied to patients and their families.

“It’s not done as a matter of caution. We don’t notify families. Maybe if he was a fresh admission but I have a responsibility to him as well,” Casper said, adding the facility was not notified the man was a registered sex offender upon his admittance. “He’s really not a threat to anyone. He’s an amputee and lives in a room with two other men. The police do come all the time to check up on him.”

While several states including Illinois and Virginia have laws requiring criminal background checks on nursing home residents, Florida only requires them on the staff working in those facilities.

“Just because somebody had a stroke on one side doesn’t mean they can’t do something,” Hickman said, citing Bronson’s possible ability to use his one fully functional arm to pick up a knife or fork as a weapon or grab a pillow to smother someone. “Just because they’re elderly doesn’t mean they can’t harm you.”

The family is willing to sit with legislators to draft the law and will testify before committees to hammer out the details of the legislation, including what should happen to elderly criminals not incarcerated but with such violent pasts, they pose a threat to other nursing home residents.

“The U.S. Justice System must prepare to meet the needs of these older mentally and physically ill criminals. They must expand their facilities and their financial resources to cover the costs of caring for the sick criminals in prisons across America,” Myers said.

Interested parties can find the petition at http://www.change.org/petitions/norma-s-nursing-home-law.