Her family knew the 77-year-old was dying from cancer, but they never expected to be the ones to find her dead.

"Not in a nursing home, maybe in our house or something, but not in a nursing home," her daughter told the local television news.

On June 21st, she says she and her husband went to visit her mother after attending Sunday mass and dropping her daughter off at work. She estimates their arrival at the facility was around 9:30 a.m. judging by her daughter's time card, which clocked her in at 9:18 a.m. She says it's about a 10-15 minute from her daughter's place of employment to the nursing home where her mother was staying.

When she walked into her mother's room, she says she knew something was wrong because of the way her mother was sitting in her wheelchair.

"Her hand was on the ground and she was bent over in the wheelchair and evidently nobody checked on her for I don't know how long," she said. "I walked over and I pushed on her chest a couple of times and she was ice cold. I went for her pulse and her arm was ice cold."

"They said somebody was in there and they just recently checked on her and I said, 'If they did, why was she so cold and where was the call button?' There was nothing there for her to even push. I don't know if she suffered in the end or what," said the daughter. For more, read the story.

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Robert W. Carter, Jr. is a Virginia attorney whose law practice is dedicated to protecting the rights of the victims of nursing home and assisted living neglect and abuse in Richmond, Roanoke, Norfolk, Lynchburg, Danville, Charlottesville, and across Virginia.