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Background: The Des Moines County Correctional Center in Burlington, Iowa (Google Maps). Inset: Audrey Engler (Des Moines County Jail).
An Iowa caregiver has been sentenced to a lengthy prison term after neglecting an elderly woman, resulting in the woman’s death amid deplorable conditions.
Audrey Engler, now sentenced to a maximum of 10 years at the Iowa Correctional Institution for Women, was credited for time already spent in custody, according to records from Des Moines County reviewed by Law&Crime.
The 25-year-old Engler admitted guilt in February to the charge of intentional dependent adult abuse, which led to serious injury. Initially detained at the Des Moines County Correctional Center in Burlington, Iowa, Engler faced charges in December 2025.
Prior to her arrest, on July 21, 2025, a fire broke out on the elderly woman’s mattress, resulting in her being hospitalized and subsequently transferred to hospice care, as detailed in a criminal complaint. The woman had employed Vibrance Homecare for assistance, with Engler assigned as her caregiver.
Despite covering the rent and utility expenses for her apartment, the elderly woman requested her case manager to buy clothing for her, as all her funds were reportedly directed towards Engler.
On Aug. 14, 2025, the woman died, and the following day, the Burlington Police Department began to investigate the circumstances surrounding her death. Investigators learned that the woman had not been receiving her medicine while living with her assigned caregiver.
Furthermore, while a nurse was originally coming by frequently to deal with the woman’s pain, Engler encouraged the nurse to reduce her visits because she said the patient was “adequately” being taken care of, the complaint states.
As it turned out, this was not the case.
The home was in a general state of disarray, with “stuff all over the ground” so that “a person couldn’t find a place to sit or stand,” authorities said. The woman had “burns on her back, had ulcers on her buttocks, bed sores, a full catheter bag,” and at one point was “sitting in feces.”
Also troubling was that the woman appeared to be getting “skinnier and skinnier,” according to the complaint. She would communicate with Engler via text when she needed something, but detectives reviewed their message history and found multiple occurrences in which Engler “wouldn’t respond for hours.”
When investigators spoke with Engler, she admitted that she only moved the woman “one time a day,” per the complaint. She also conceded that she “could have taken care of the dependent adult better and could have checked on her more and could have had more compassion for her.”
In addition to being sentenced to serve prison time, Engler must pay a fine of $1,500, though the court agreed to suspend the fine “[b]ased upon a review of the Defendant’s financial circumstances.”