HARTFORD, Conn. — Connecticut state officials Monday outlined a new safety program for home health care workers that will include GPS monitoring and escorts to potentially risky clients.
The program comes in response to the murder last year of a visiting nurse who was killed when she went to administer medications to a registered sex offender.
Nearly every one of the politicians who spoke at Monday’s press conference at the state Capitol mentioned Joyce Grayson’s name and said that the $6 million in state funding to implement a “home safety program” for her fellow home health care workers is in her memory.
Grayson, 63, was allegedly murdered last October by Michael Reese when she went to the Willimantic halfway house where he was staying to administer his medications.
Reese was charged with murder, felony murder and attempted first-degree sexual assault after police found Grayson strangled to death in the basement and found Reese carrying her car keys and bank cards. Reese is being held on a combined $3 million bond and is scheduled to appear in Danielson Superior Court on Sept. 13.
“We know that the nature of this work frequently exposes those workers to various risks and challenges,” DSS Commissioner Andrea Barton-Reeves said. “So ensuring their safety and their well-being is of paramount importance. This in-home safety Grant Program offers funding for a comprehensive array of safety enhancements.”
Among the initiatives: providing emergency response buttons to each worker for quick access to assistance; the implementation of a buddy escort system to ensure the safety of staff members during visits to high-risk areas; distribution of GPS tracking devices to monitor the location and safety of home health workers in real time; and establishing dedicated phone lines for staff in the field to access immediate support and report safety concerns.
The state will use $6 million in American Rescue Plan money to fund the program, at least initially.
State Sen. Martha Marx, D-New London, who is a home health care worker, said it was a “little sad that it took Joyce’s murder to get here” but that the new program will increase safety of home care workers.
Marx said that all home health care workers at one time or another have been threatened physically or verbally by a client, “but it just took the murder of Joyce Grayson to elevate it” for everyone to realize “it really can happen and it can happen again.”
Marx said she believes that Grayson could have survived if some of these new requirements were in place.
“If she had had that device where she could have pushed that button, so that the whole neighborhood maybe could have heard that something was happening … yes, it would help her,” Marx said.
The Grayson family has hired the Reardon Law Firm of New London to represent them. Kelly Reardon on Monday put out a statement on the family’s behalf regarding the state’s initiative.
“If Joyce Grayson was given an emergency alert button or GPS tracker by her employer, it is very likely she would be alive today. These inexpensive devices should be available to all home health workers in Connecticut,” the statement reads.
The family has filed a lawsuit against the parent company that owns Elara Caring, where Grayson was working, alleging that they emphasized profits over staff safety and routinely sent workers into environments they knew were dangerous.
Reardon said they also have filed a claim with the state Claims Commissioner seeking approval to sue the state over Reese’s placement in the halfway house despite his being a registered sex offender as well as on probation for a violent crime.
When asked about Reese’s release, Gov. Ned Lamont said he didn’t have specifics on how Reese came to be placed in the Willimantic halfway house.
“I don’t know the story on this one. But it didn’t work out, did it?” he said.
Reese was Grayson’s first appointment that morning, and phone records and surveillance video show her red Hyundai Sonata arriving at 106 Chapman St. in Willimantic around 7:37 a.m., according to the arrest warrant.
Not even 20 minutes later, the red Hyundai was at the Sun Mart Smoke Shop & Convenience Store on Main Street, where cameras captured Reese walking in and using an ATM, according to the warrant. Records showed that Reese had taken $202.25 out of Grayson’s account, it said.
Reese was wearing an ankle bracelet because he was on probation from a previous offense that also required him to register as a sex offender.
Police using GPS data recorded by the ankle bracelet and surveillance video discovered that Reese drove around downtown Willimantic and went to a Liberty Bank on Main Street and withdrew another $203.50 of Grayson’s money. Surveillance video from the bank showed him looking at a piece of paper that had her PIN number written on it, the warrant said.
Willimantic police started looking for Grayson after her daughter called police concerned that she had not shown up at her other appointments scheduled for that day.
She told police that in tracking her mother’s cellphone through the Apple “Find My” app, it showed she still was at 106 Chapman St., where Reese lived, the warrant said.
When police returned to the Chapman Street house, they saw Reese leaving from the back door and walking toward a bike path, the warrant said. He had a knife, which the officer took; he also had a crack pipe, Grayson’s credit and debit cards and her car’s key fob, the warrant said.
When police went into the house, they found Grayson dead in the basement, the warrant said.
Grayson, 63, worked for Elara Caring as a visiting nurse for 15 years. She also was a mental health nurse for the state Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services for 26 years.
