A 95-year-old woman has been charged with murder after her 89-year-old roommate was found dead in a Brooklyn nursing home. Police arrived at Seagate Rehabilitation and Nursing Center late Sunday night to discover Nina Kravtsov unresponsive and bloodied, with visible injuries to her face and head, the New York Times reports. She was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital early Monday; authorities say the cause was blunt force trauma.
The victim's roommate, Galina Smirnova, was detained the following day and now faces charges of murder and criminal possession of a weapon. According to the criminal complaint, Smirnova was seen washing her hands in the blood-splattered bathroom. She reportedly had blood on her hospital gown and legs, and a wheelchair in the room had been partly dismantled, its components stained and scattered. Law enforcement sources tell NBC New York that Kravtsov was beaten to death with part of the wheelchair.
Smirnova pleaded not guilty at her arraignment and is being held without bail. Prosecutors have requested a mental health evaluation. Smirnova has dementia, according to NBC New York's sources. Lucy Flom, the victim's daughter, tells the New York Post that her mother was a Holocaust survivor from Ukraine. "She sacrificed a lot. She was a single mom. She had me when she was 18," Flom says. "She came here to give me a good education. She was a very dedicated mother."
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Seagate, which houses about 360 residents, has faced scrutiny in the past, the Times reports. Last fall, state inspectors cited Seagate for inadequate staffing, an issue reportedly fixed by year's end. Still, the facility received the lowest possible staffing rating from Medicare, with registered nurses spending significantly less time per patient than state and national averages. The center has also been named in lawsuits over wrongful death, negligence, and alleged failures to protect residents from harm, including during the pandemic.
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