Part 1: First his mother was taken. Then came a criminal investigation.
Joyce Santinello, 84-years-old and suffering from dementia, disappeared from her Fort Lauderdale apartment on March 5, 2024. Her son and primary caregiver, John Santinello, hasn’t seen her since. He’s turned to the police, the courts, and medical professionals for help only to be met with indifference and suspicion.
Now John Santinello wants answers no one will give him. Only when it was too late did he realize he made a critical mistake in not obtaining official guardianship and power of attorney over his mother and her affairs as her health declined.
The result was that he was locked out of her life in an instant.
“It is so vital to get a power of attorney, and I never gave it a thought,” Santinello said.
But even a power of attorney isn’t fool-proof. Santinello’s story serves as a warning for anyone concerned about protecting vulnerable elderly people in their lives, said Rick Black, executive director of the Center for Estate Administration Reform and board member of Kasem Cares, a non-profit that counsels people fighting fraudulent guardianships and probate exploitation.
Law enforcement doesn’t like to get involved in exploitation cases, said Black, because they’re complex and often involve feuding family members. There is also an element of “ageism,” he added, because people who are in the last years of their lives are just not considered as valuable as younger people.
Many of the victims are in cognitive decline and don’t realize they are being exploited.
“Most of these victims assume Stockholm Syndrome very quickly,” said Black, who added that the law favors whoever has immediate custody. “Control of the body is ten-tenths of the law in elder cases.”
Police may check to make sure the person is alive and not being visibly abused, but more often than not they’ll refer such cases to a state’s adult protective services agency, an often patchwork and overburdened regulatory system that is also often ineffective, according to Black.
For all those reasons, the odds were stacked against Santinello when he began an all-consuming effort to return his mother home. It was a journey that tore his family further apart and at times had him questioning his own sanity – before he finally learned the truth.
A civil matter?
A registered nurse then working at a long-term care facility, Santinello first noticed his mother’s mental decline about ten years ago, when she became lost driving home from her job as a security guard at the Broward Convention Center. Shortly after, she fell and broke her hip. As her condition worsened, Santinello took a leave from his job to care for her.
He stayed in her one-bedroom apartment on the east side of Fort Lauderdale, where he helped with the bills while using his mother’s social security payments to cover the rent and utilities out of a Wells Fargo bank account he and his mother shared. They also shared an American Express card.
By 2024, her short term memory was gone and she had a home health aide visit during the day. Early that year, John’s sister-in-law, Kelly Cabot, visited from Utah and offered to look after his mother for a night so he could take a break from caretaking. John trusted Cabot at the time – she was married to his brother and both were former Golden Beach police officers – and accepted.
The next morning John received a panicked call from his mother’s home health aide, who told him Joyce was gone. The aide also said she’d received a text from Cabot saying John would never see his mother again. Accompanying the text was a photo of his mom in an airplane seat on a Delta flight.
“I was in hysterics,” John recalled.
He phoned his brother, Leo Santinello, over and over before he finally picked up.
“He said I was a fake, a phony, and ‘we’re going to bring felony charges against you’,” John recounted. “I was so scared and upset I was shaking,”
He was also surprised his mother could board a plane because her driver’s license, Medicare card and other IDs were still in the apartment (John shared a photo of those items with the Florida Trident). After not hearing from his brother for three days, he called the Fort Lauderdale Police Department. A detective said it was a civil matter, and “there’s nothing we can do,” John recalled. The detective advised him to get an attorney.
When police called about three weeks later, it wasn’t to follow-up on the disappearance of his mother. Instead Fort Lauderdale police Det. Tristan Reid informed John that he was under investigation for elder exploitation, including allegations he fraudulently took his mother’s Social Security checks. His sister-in-law, Cabot, was the complainant and wanted John – who has no criminal history or complaints on his state nursing record – arrested.
Cabot “alleged John forged Joyce’s signature on a ’23 black Nissan Altima,” and that he’d “taken out 4 cars in Joyce’s name,” Reid wrote in his report. She further claimed John had been “abusing” his mother’s Wells Fargo Bank account holding $337,000; that he’d maxed out the American Express card, and took a home equity loan out in Joyce’s name from Mass Mutual Credit Union.
The detective examined both the Wells Fargo and American Express accounts and, contrary to Cabot’s claims, found “no evidence of fraud.” He reported that an employee of the Nissan dealership “refuted Cabot’s allegations” of forgery and explained that the person signing the lease has to be present. The employee informed Reid that four cars weren’t taken out in Joyce’s name, but that one car was renewed three times.
The bank account never held $337,000 and there was no Mass Mutual home equity loan. The detective cleared John of any crimes, which led to recrimination from his sister-in-law. “Cabot became upset, argumentative, and accused me of being manipulated and not doing my job,” Reid wrote.
When contacted by phone in Utah, Kelly Cabot stuck by her allegations against John Santinello. “They were definitely true,” Cabot said. “It’s just the police thought she was no longer in danger, so they didn’t care to prosecute for fraud. We were kind of taken aback. In the end they were right, she was safe.”
Cabot sent the Trident a video of her interaction with Joyce the day before she took her to Utah that she said showed her during a “rare moment of lucidity.” In the interaction Cabot asks Joyce if she’s ready for the trip to see her son Leo.
“Oh yeah, I want to see Leo,” answers Joyce. “John’s not coming?”
“He has a ticket for tomorrow,” Cabot says. “But if he can’t take off tomorrow, he’ll have to ask work when he can come.”
John said Cabot was being untruthful to his mother in the video – he never had a plane ticket and never knew of the plan to take his mother. “She’s definitely lying to my mother,” he said.
Joyce didn’t have a lot of money – she earned $1,100 a month from Social Security, he said. Because he didn’t have power of attorney, that money was diverted to a Utah bank account. For her part, Cabot sent the Trident photos of improvements, like an ADA compliant bathroom, she made to her house for Joyce.
When John discovered that his sister-in-law and brother were filing a petition to become Joyce’s guardians, he quickly hired a Utah lawyer to fight the petition in court, again at a disadvantage because he’d never secured a power of attorney.
Then he began digging for more information to try to help explain what was happening and why his brother and sister-in-law had turned on him. He found a 2003 story in the Miami New Times documenting Cabot’s tumultuous history. That story begins at a time Kelly Cabot had a different name: Michelle Nogues.
“Masterful at manipulating”
Michelle Nogues, the daughter of two doctors, showed signs of trouble early in life.
When the family resided briefly in Virginia, a teenage Michelle reported that someone had dismembered her pet rabbits and left pieces in her high school locker, according to court records cited in the New Times story. The incident shocked school officials and sparked an investigation by police, who secretly began surveilling the locker.
When Michelle later claimed there were more rabbit parts placed in her locker, police reported seeing only Michelle use the locker. They also determined that a threatening note left in the locker was written on a typewriter used in a typewriting class Michelle was taking. Officers wanted her to take a polygraph test, but her mother refused to let her.
Court documents show the unsettling behavior continued in the Miami area, where she grew up. While babysitting her eight younger siblings, Michelle made numerous calls to Miami-Dade police alleging intruders were lurking outside the family home. Police kept responding but found nothing suspicious, at one point calling her reports “questionable.” When she was taken to a psychiatrist, she alleged her father fondled her. After polygraph tests indicated deception on her part, Michelle recanted the story.
The psychiatrist would later testify that he diagnosed her as a malignant narcissist with a psychopathic personality disorder.
In 1989, Michelle’s 15-year-old sister Aimee allegedly told her their adoptive father had molested her. Michelle called authorities, initiating what at the time would become the longest running custody dispute in Miami-Dade County history. The sister and her siblings were removed from the home while an investigation was launched. But a year later Aimee recanted, saying that Michelle had instructed her to make the allegations in order to win custody of her siblings. Police closed the case as “unfounded.”
A year after that, Aimee held a press conference saying the molestation really did occur, and she had audiotapes to prove it. The father and mother demanded that the tapes be analyzed. Because it’s illegal to record someone without their consent in Florida, the tapes were not admissible in court and were never analyzed.
As the custody battle dragged on, Michelle underwent at least two mental health examinations. In one, a staff therapist for family court wrote, “Casual observation of her interactions with the children gives the impression of a calm, well-organized and attentive style of managing this group of children.” A second examination by court-ordered psychiatrist Diane Schetky found evidence that Michelle showed signs of “narcissistic, histrionic, and antisocial traits.”
“She had a vivid imagination, at times may be delusional, and seems to believe the stories she has woven,” wrote Schetky, a national expert on child sexual abuse. “She is also convincing in what she tells others and is masterful at manipulating.”
After a grueling legal battle, Michelle’s mother and father regained custody of the children. The lead detective investigating Michelle’s claims, Ellen Christopher, told the Trident she remembered the case vividly. “I called it the case from hell,” said the since-retired Christopher.
Michelle went on to become a police officer in Florida, first in Davie, where she was quickly fired for being untruthful on her application by not giving her mother’s real name and claiming she had no contact information for her (Michelle later said the omission was to prevent employers from contacting her mother).
She was subsequently hired in tiny and affluent Golden Beach, where she accused several employees of misconduct ranging from sexual harassment to creating a hostile workplace. Two supervisors reprimanded her. She went to the town manager and both supervisors were fired (they later sued the town and won a settlement).
Her mother warned Golden Beach’s town manager about Michelle in a letter.
“This is very difficult to do … yet I feel that others need to be protected,” she wrote. “… Her pathological need for attention is behind the recent accusations leveled at some in the Golden Beach Police Department.”
It was at Golden Beach where Cabot met and married John’s brother Leo, a fellow police officer, but John said his brother never mentioned any of the drama there.
Michelle retired in 2005, claimed a disability, sued her department for backpay, and moved to Utah, where she began going by the name Kelly Cabot.
“She loved John”
As John battled for his mother’s custody in 2024, he called the police in Herriman, Utah, where the couple lived, and asked for an officer to conduct a welfare check on her. Officer Ben Rugebregt visited the home.
“Kelly invited me inside, where she provided me with detailed information about Joyce’s condition and care,” Rugebregt wrote in his report. “Kelly explained that Joyce had been severely neglected by her son, John, in Florida. She described finding Joyce in dirty diapers, tied to a bed, and suffering from malnutrition and various infections.”
When the Trident told John about the report he angrily responded that it was a lie. He submitted photos and videos of his mother shortly before she disappeared and provided medical records, none of which indicated his mother was malnourished or covered with infections.
Greg Paris, whose mother was Joyce’s neighbor in the apartment building, told the Trident he socialized with Joyce and John frequently and never saw evidence of malnutrition or mistreatment.
“I used to go into her unit all the time, she was next to my mom,” Paris said. “I put batteries in the thermostat or whatever she needed. I never saw anything like that. Her bedroom was butting up to my living room, so I could hear them talking and interacting. They were always happy. John was so good to her. She loved John. She was always happy to see him.”
During his investigation, Reid, the Fort Lauderdale detective, interviewed Joyce’s landlords. “They both stated that John was an outstanding individual who they said took the best care of Joyce,” Reid wrote.
Cabot, however, said she first became suspicious after they bought John and Joyce tickets to visit them in Utah nine times, and right before each visit John canceled because Joyce had an accident requiring hospitalization. “You don’t have to be ex-law enforcement to see a pattern here,” she said.
John said Cabot never bought them tickets to go to Utah. He said he bought tickets for them to visit Utah three times and they went each time.
Cabot questioned a painkiller prescription for Joyce. John said his mother was under the care of a physician and took pain medication due to severe spinal pain from a previous car accident and degenerative bone disease that had worn down her shoulders. She also claimed Joyce was “emaciated” and sent a photo of them together in Fort Lauderdale as supposed evidence of it.
To back up her assertion that Joyce’s health improved under her care, Cabot sent pictures of Joyce in Utah, in which she appears smiling, and videos of her putting on her socks and walking down steps unassisted. But a doctor’s note indicated that while in Utah her condition was getting worse.
On April 26, 2024, a Utah doctor supported Cabot and Leo Santinello’s petition for guardianship, writing, “Her Alzheimer’s and dementia have progressed to the point where she cannot dress herself, go to the restroom or take her medications. She has very short term memory and needs constant care. She cannot be left alone at any point as she puts herself at risk for danger.”
Meanwhile, Cabot’s sister Aimee provided the Trident videos showing Cabot and Joyce arguing. In one, Cabot tells Joyce to “stop hitting me,” when there’s no evidence in the video of Joyce hitting her. In another, Joyce is lying face-down on the floor next to a couch while Cabot records her and tells her she’s “faking” it.
Aimee’s teenage daughter, whose name is also Michelle, said she witnessed Cabot coaching Joyce with a script about John that included the lines, “John changed the numbers … John doesn’t want to be bothered with you …John wanted you dead for life insurance.”
“I was just confused, why is she showing this to Joyce?” Michelle told the Trident. “She would make her read it everyday in the morning when nana woke up.”
Cabot admitted she wrote the script and said it was necessary to create “new neural pathways” to rehabilitate Joyce after John had brainwashed her. She said the video of Joyce on the floor was also rehabilitation after John had convinced her she couldn’t move.
The battle ends
This past June, John received notice of a late fee from American Express. He always paid the statement on time, he said, so he called customer service where he was given shocking news.
“We’re sorry to tell you this,” he said a company representative told him, “but Joyce is dead.”
Utah’s Department of Health and Human Services later sent a death certificate showing Joyce had died from “unspecified natural causes” on Feb. 13, 2025. She was cremated a week later. It meant she had died before police did the welfare check, but the officer hadn’t told John, likely because he believed Cabot’s version of events.
The struggle was over.
The reversal of John Santinello’s world was sudden and complete. His mother disappeared forever from his life. His brother, who he was cordial with, if not exactly close, turned on him without warning. And he was accused of the cruelest crime he could imagine — taking advantage of his mother. Throughout, he was alone to navigate his way through the crisis.
Though Fort Lauderdale police cleared him of the allegations, they didn’t help bring back his mother. Neither did police in Utah. Looking back, he said they should have investigated his mother’s mental state to determine whether she had the capacity to consent to being taken away and how she was able to board the plane when her ID was left at home. Cabot’s background should have also been investigated, he said.
He said he went into counseling to help with the anxiety from the ordeal and his therapist told him he might have post traumatic stress disorder. In early October he commissioned a memorial brick with his mother’s name on it to be placed on the Las Olas Riverwalk in Fort Lauderdale. “Just something to remember her by,” he said.
Cabot, meanwhile, said she’s happy she took Joyce away from John.
“She enjoyed the very best year she could have had, getting proper medical care and proper therapy,” she said. “I don’t really much care because we live in Utah and have a happy life.”
About the Author: Tristram Korten is a veteran investigative reporter in Florida whose work has appeared in newspapers and public radio across the state. Nationally he has written for magazines and newspapers including Smithsonian, Outside, GQ and The Washington Post. He serves as a contributing editor at the Florida Trident.