An 80-year-old Canadian woman with Alzheimer’s was allegedly raped in January while vacationing with her family at the Warwick Hotel in the Bahamas.
Another guest — a man, also from Canada — has been accused, CTV News reported Tuesday.
The son of the alleged victim, David Ahrens, immediately traveled to the location when his sister alerted him to the situation, the outlet continued:
The trip was coming to a close when Ahrens says an uninvited guest joined his sister and mother with their friends for dinner. While heading back to their hotel room, they became separated, leaving the elderly woman alone on an elevator with that guest.
“My younger sister stepped out of the elevator and as she turned around to sort of hand out to get my mom, the doors closed and effectively my mother disappeared,” Ahrens said.
Ahren’s sister and her friends searched the hotel for approximately 30 minutes and asked staff members to review the security video to help locate the woman.
However, the mother and the man were eventually spotted stepping off an elevator, and Ahrens claimed she was holding her underwear in her hand.
When law enforcement arrived at the scene, the elderly woman was taken to a hospital. A rape kit used on the alleged victim reportedly came back positive.
“Local media in the Bahamas are reporting that police have charged a 61-year-old Nova Scotia man, accusing him of raping an 80-year-old woman at the Warwick Hotel,” the CTV article said.
The man, Gordon Wilkie, is being held in the Bahamas without bail.
The woman’s family members are warning others to keep an extremely close eye on their loved ones — especially those who might be vulnerable — when traveling.
A GoFunMe has been organized to cover the elderly woman’s legal and medical expenses.
The report comes after two mothers from Kentucky claimed they were drugged and raped during a recent vacation in the Bahamas with Carnival Cruises, Breitbart News reported February 8.
“They have since claimed that Carnival did not inform them about official warnings when traveling to the area,” the outlet said, adding, “On January 26, the U.S. Department of State issued a travel advisory for the Bahamas.”
The resort where the alleged incident happened now claims the women’s account does not line up with security footage, according to the New York Post.
However, Nicholas Gerson, the lawyer representing the two women, does not believe his clients are lying:
“There’s no reason for us to think anything other than that my clients are telling the 100 percent truth,” Gerson said.