The patient’s guardian has filed a lawsuit against the boarding home owner. Arlington police say they are investigating.
FORT WORTH, Texas — Diana Aycox grew up on Maryannes Meadow Drive in Fort Worth and inherited the tidy brick home from her parents.
She spent her life taking care of other people’s children. When dementia took hold in 2021, a doctor concluded she was mentally incapacitated and unable to care for herself. As a result, she needed to be taken care of by others.
“She was just really sweet and confused,” her neighbor, Deanna Torres said.
That’s how Aycox came to live in an Arlington boarding home run by Ireka Hamilton.
Hamilton’s name is well known to state regulators. Records show the state sued her after regulators repeatedly found her caring for clients in homes that should have been licensed as assisted living facilities. Two families filed lawsuits – which were recently settled – alleging she neglected their loved ones.
Now there are questions – and a probate court battle – over how Hamilton came to own Aycox’s home. Advocates say the allegations point to the larger problem of the state failing to adequately protect vulnerable people from financial exploitation.
“You have unscrupulous actors who realize and capitalize on the fact that people who live in board and care homes are vulnerable to exploitation,” said DJ Maughan, a public health expert and professor at Oklahoma State University.
For decades, Aycox was a fixture in this neighborhood of small brick homes. She was active in her church’s choir and Bible study group.
In September 2021, not long after she ended up in the hospital and diagnosed with dementia, she signed a document giving her church pastor the power to make medical decisions.
Court records show he found the home operated by Hamilton and placed her there. Soon after, he resigned as power of attorney.
“Her church friends were initially of the understanding that she was getting good care and Ireka was helping her,” Andrea Casanova, who later became Aycox’s court-appointed guardian, told WFAA.
In February 2022, Hamilton filed what’s known as a “suggestion of need” in Tarrant County probate court.
“She has been deemed mentally incapacitated and cannot take care of herself,” Hamilton wrote.
Hamilton also noted that Aycox owned a house, and she was “unable to pay for both her care and her mortgage.” She checked a box stating that she was Aycox’s “friend.”
Casanova told WFAA that those court records showed that Hamilton knew that Aycox lacked the mental competence to make financial decisions such as selling her house.
In filing a suggestion of need, Hamilton triggered the court’s oversight, which would later lead to the discovery that she had come to own Aycox’s home.
The court appointed an investigator to investigate Aycox’s situation. In August 2022, the court appointed attorney Bob Leonard to be Aycox’s guardian ad litem. He met with Aycox and began to negotiate with her lender and discussed selling the property, according to court records.
On Aug. 30, 2022, he got word that the house had been sold for $120,000. He’d soon learn Hamilton bought it.
According to the seller’s closing statement, about $76,300 went to pay off the existing loan on the property. Aycox was to receive about $42,000.
Leonard quickly filed paperwork with the county to prevent Hamilton from selling the house.
“Diana did not know what she was signing,” Casanova said. “I do not even know if she knew to read the contract.”
On Sept. 12, 2022 — 13 days after buying the house — Hamilton put the home up for sale for $225,000, records show.
Records show Leonard told the court he researched Hamilton’s history. He found that she had multiple lawsuits, including suits for foreclosure where she had lived, one for breach of contract and two separate filings for bankruptcy.
That same month, Leonard filed paperwork asking that a guardian be appointed. He suggested that Casanova be selected as that guardian.
In carrying out her duties, Casanova told WFAA that she went to see Aycox at the boarding home.
“The staff originally did not want to let us enter the home even though we had a court order,” Casanova said. “I was able to visit with Diana for about maybe 10 minutes at the most until they came back in, and they wouldn’t let me speak with her privately.”
The court also appointed an attorney to represent Aycox. That attorney told the court that Aycox had given power of attorney to Hamilton so that she could “take care” of her property and finances. He told the court that she “feels she is being taken care of and has people like Ms. Hamilton to help her.”
In October 2023, the probate judge appointed Casanova as Diana’s temporary guardian. Casanova said Aycox was there during the hearing.
“You could see, she didn’t even understand that she was being taken advantage of, that every piece of personal and sentimental property she owned was gone, and that her only asset that could actually pay for her care was taken away from her by a predator,” Casanova said.
Casanova said she got an emergency order removing Aycox from Hamilton’s care.
The attorney then asked Hamilton for an accounting of Aycox’s finances and requested that she turn over Aycox’s property.
Hamilton sent a cashier’s check in the amount of $42,000, which records show was the amount Aycox was to have been paid on the house.
Casanova said when she tried to cash it, she found the cashier’s check had been canceled.
In February, Casanova sued Hamilton on behalf of Aycox, alleging fraud. Court records show that constables have not been able to locate Hamilton to serve the lawsuit. In one case, she told a deputy constable over the phone that she did not want to “receive the papers without her attorney’s approval.” However, she would not provide the attorney’s information, the deputy constable wrote.
Around the same time that Casanova filed the lawsuit, neighbors saw activity at the home. People were moving in.
“I noticed there were a lot of medical vans, elderly people being pushed in wheelchairs,” said neighbor Derrick Moon.
Another neighbor said she was told by the people moving in that the “property is now a group home.”
Casanova got a restraining order, and Hamilton agreed to move the tenants out.
Casanova told WFAA that Hamilton denied any wrongdoing.
“She denies that this was financial exploitation of an elderly person and (said) that Diana did it of her own free will,” Casanova said, referring to the sale of the house.
WFAA reached Hamilton by phone. She declined to answer our questions.
There are similar questions about another boarding home operator named Regla Becquer.
She’s under criminal indictment on a murder charge in the overdose death of a client. She’s also charged with endangerment over allegations that she neglected another client. Her bail has been set at $1.5 million.
Records show she and her family gained control of the homes, cars and accounts of several clients.
In one case, Karen Walker signed over her “entire estate” to Becquer. That’s according to a one-paragraph will dated only 19 days before Walker died of heart disease.
Becquer inherited an estate worth $331,00 that included Walker’s Arlington home, money and car, court records show.
“These predators see the vulnerable population as an easy target and they really are a perfect victim,” Casanova said. “They can’t remember what they said, what they did. They’re completely reliant on these people to provide them safe shelter, food.”
Casanova reported the fraud allegation to the Arlington Police Department.
Police told WFAA the case remains open and they’re investigating.
“This is a community issue,” Casanova said. “It can happen to any one of us any one of our families, any one of our grandparents, and it’s a prevailing issue, and it shouldn’t have to happen.”
This past October marked three years since Aycox lived in the home on Maryannes Meadow.
Hamilton still legally owns the home, Tarrant County records show.
Aycox, now 76, lives in a memory care unit in Tarrant County. Her care is being paid for by Medicaid.
The house sits empty while the legal battle over the house continues.
“That’s sad because that’s all she had,” the neighbor, Torres, said of the home.