Search warrants shed light on conditions in North Texas group homes, allege theft, abuse
New details have emerged about the way police say residents at unlicensed group homes in Arlington and Mansfield were treated. Three search warrants obtained by the Star-Telegram say that 13 people died while at or immediately after leaving the group homes and investigators are looking into reports of abuse and theft from patients.
Residents and family members told police Regla “Su” Becquer, 49, or people working in the five homes she owned limited access to their loved ones, gave them unknown drugs and left them worse off than they were when they arrived, sometimes in as little as a month, according to the warrants. Patients said they were held against their will, and family members said the residents would be disoriented when visited.
Becquer has been arrested and charged with one count of abandoning or endangering an individual creating imminent danger of bodily injury related to the treatment of one resident, according to police.
The resident police said was the victim in the endangerment case, who cannot move her legs and has to wear a diaper, told investigators she was held against her will, forced to stay on a mattress on the floor, had water poured on her by people working in the home, was given an unfamiliar drug and went long periods of time without her diaper being changed, according to an arrest warrant for Becquer.
The search warrants for three of the houses owned by Becquer and operated as unlicensed group homes shed light on the conditions inside, and other instances that authorities say may constitute abuse or neglect. Police have said they expect more charges to be filed as the investigation proceeds.
Becquer operated bed and board homes with referrals from doctors, retirement communities, social workers and hospitals out of four houses in Arlington and Mansfield, according to police: 1210 Woodbrook St. in Arlington, 7411 Lake Whitney Drive in Arlington, 7419 Fossil Creek Drive in Arlington and 2059 Turtle Cove Drive in Mansfield. A police news release also listed a fifth home in Grand Prairie.
Police haven’t been able to find any medical licenses for the people staffing the bed and board houses, according to the warrant for Becquer’s arrest. In many cases, the staff were relatives of Becquer.
According to a warrant written by Detective Krystallyne Robinson, police who went to the homes regularly found vehicles that were registered to the people who died while in or after being in Becquer’s care. Investigators also received reports from family members that patients’ debit cards and, in at least one instance, an EBT card was fraudulently used while the patients were in her care.
Police were called to the Woodbrook Street house on Nov. 20, 2023, after a neighbor reported a man had fallen in the back yard and seemed unable to get up, according to the search warrant for that property. When officers arrived, they found a 63-year-old man on the ground.
The man required a wheelchair to move and could sometimes use his arms to “scoot himself around,” according to the search warrant. Officers found out there were two other patients inside the home.
When they spoke with the neighbor who called police, officers were told the home used to belong to a woman who was of sound mind the last time the neighbor saw her but she was put in Becquer’s care and after she died her home became Becquer’s property.
After finding the man who had fallen in the back yard of the Woodbrook Street property, officers became concerned for the safety of the other patients in the home, according to the search warrant.
The officers heard Regla Becquer telling one of the women at the house to deny entry to police, but the officers went inside with paramedics anyway, the warrant says, citing a police report from the encounter. The warrant identified the woman as Vivanly Becquer, Regla Becquer’s sister and a caretaker at the house.
Another woman was also at the house and identified as a caretaker, according to police.
The warrant for a later search of the Woodbrook Street house said police initially went into the home by citing exigent circumstances, namely a concern by officers and paramedics for the welfare of the patients, as the justification for entering without invitation.
Before entering, officers were told there was only one other patient inside, according to the warrant. Instead, officers found two additional patients. The Arlington fire marshal went to the house and determined that it did not qualify as an actual group home because there were only three people living there, the warrant states.
Officers at the scene spoke with Regla Becquer about the man who fell in the yard and were told he’d fallen several times before, according to the search warrant. Becquer later changed her statement to say it was the first time he’d fallen. She told the officers he was receiving 24/7 care, something one officer noted in a report was not true, according to the warrant.
Robinson wrote in the warrant that the Behavioral Health Law Enforcement Unit, known by the acronym BHLEU, informed her of several other reports regarding Regla Becquer.
That’s when Robinson became aware of the woman whose treatment led to Becquer’s arrest, according to the warrant. When officers were called to the home on Dec. 13, they were told the woman wanted to leave. They saw cuts on her wrist, which she told them she’d made in an attempt to be taken to the hospital so she could get away from the house.
The woman also told officers she was given a liquid medicine, which was not prescribed to her, any time she got upset about the caretakers in the house not allowing her to leave, Robinson wrote in the warrant. She described it as tasting like mint. The medication is not identified in the search warrant or the arrest warrant.
Becquer told officers at one point that the woman had been “scratching herself” and trying to die by suicide, according to the search warrant.
There were no calls for service to the house, “meaning no one called 911 (in) reference (to the woman) trying to cut her own wrists,” Robinson wrote in the warrant.
One patient was placed first in the Fossil Creek Drive house and then the property on Woodbrook, according to the search warrant. His family told police he was diagnosed with syphilis after being moved into the Fossil Creek home and that the doctor told them he hadn’t had syphilis before.
The family told investigators the man was referred to the Fossil Creek Drive house by a social worker after he began having trouble with falling, according to the warrant. While there, they had trouble getting him on the phone to talk. When he would answer the phone, he was unresponsive. The family went to visit him in October 2023 and said he wasn’t his normal self.
The man was disoriented and could barely keep his eyes open, according to the search warrant. He told his family someone had taken $200 from his wallet, but Becquer told them she knew nothing about that. When asked why the man seemed disoriented, Becquer told the family he had been sleeping during the day and had trouble sleeping at night, the warrant says.
She also told them the patients in the home were being given “something” to prevent them from leaving the house, Robinson wrote in the warrant.
After that visit, the family again had trouble getting the man on the phone, police said in the warrant. When they called Becquer, she told them he wouldn’t speak with them. After he was at the house for five days, the family received a call from a hospice center, informing them the man was in “very bad condition” and the family should make arrangements for a funeral. He was moved to the Woodbrook Street house.
On Nov. 1, 2023, and Nov. 2, 2023, the family received several calls from the man. He told them in those calls that the people inside the Fossil Creek Drive house were trying to kill him. They visited him at the Woodbrook Street house and found him pale in the face with sunken cheeks and a flat stomach. They told police he normally had a “somewhat round midsection.”
The family decided to remove the man from the house and on the drive home he told them he thought he was being poisoned by the people in that house, according to the warrant. He complained of a stomachache that lasted four or five days. That’s when the family took him to a doctor and learned he had syphilis, which he didn’t have before going into the bed and board houses.
The family also found fraudulent charges on his debit card from Oct. 24 to Nov. 13, 2023, the warrant states. The charges stopped after the card was canceled.
Police said another woman’s EBT card was taken from her while she was one of the houses and the money on it spent, according to the warrant.
Residents said they were given drugs they didn’t recognize and family members were told by Becquer that the people staying in the houses were given “something” to prevent them from trying to leave, according to Robinson’s warrant. In multiple instances, police were told the residents didn’t want to be in the houses, either by family members or the residents themselves. One man said he believes Becquer transferred power of attorney for his father, who had dementia, to herself from the son. That same patient missed doctor’s appointments, and one doctor told police Becquer would not allow him to be alone in the room with the man.
One woman told police Becquer was taking her mail and withholding her Social Security benefits and food stamps from her, Robinson wrote in the warrant. She told police, and a live-in caretaker for residents corroborated, that Becquer at one point took her to a Social Security office in Grand Prairie in an attempt to have the woman sign over her federal and state benefits to Becquer. One time when officers visited one of the homes, Becquer told them she was the official recipient of the woman’s Social Security benefits. She provided officers with an application to make her the recipient, but it was not signed by the woman whose benefits Becquer said she was supposed to receive.
Becquer also told officers she held the woman’s power of attorney and was the payee of the woman’s EBT benefits but could not provide any documentation to back up either claim, the warrant states.
At one point, Becquer told officers the live-in caretaker was sexually assaulting the woman and holding her against her will, according to the warrant. The woman told police that wasn’t true and officers noted in a report that the woman didn’t seem fearful of the live-in caretaker.