The Travis County district attorney's office has indicted a North Austin assisted living facility and two of its workers for the death of a resident during the 2021 statewide blackout and freeze.
Cynthia Pierce lived at the now-defunct Renaissance Austin. As temperatures plummeted, leaving millions without power and heat, Pierce was alone in an unheated room at the facility.
An open window exposed the 73-year-old to freezing conditions for hours. When she was taken to a hospital, she had severe hypothermia and died shortly after arriving.
A Travis County grand jury returned the three indictments against two employees and the facility in late July. Travis County District Attorney José Garza says his office worked with the Austin Police Department, which had also been investigating Renaissance and its employees, to secure the indictments.
The indictments are a rarity in Texas. Not a single lawsuit related to the fatal 2021 Texas freeze has gone to trial in civil courts, and none of those defendants — the majority of which are energy companies — have faced criminal charges. The blackout lasted for five days and led to the deaths of hundreds of Texans.
"Companies doing business in Travis County ... have a responsibility to take care of the people who are in their charge and if they don't and if they break the law, there will be consequences," Garza told KUT News."Companies are not above the law here in Travis County and I hope that this is part of the process of sending that message."
Pierce's family filed a lawsuit against Renaissance and the employees, Mendi Ramsay and Rochelle Alvarado, in civil court in early 2023. That case is still pending in court.
Both Ramsay and Alvarado were indicted by a grand jury with injury to an elderly person, a state jail felony that carries a two-year sentence.
Prosecutors accuse them of failing to notify the state that Renaissance's power was out over the freeze and that they didn't move Pierce to a warmer space, which led to her death.
According to the lawsuit, Pierce's body temperature was 94 degrees when she arrived at Ascension Seton Hospital — a temperature that suggested she'd been left in the cold for hours.
Pierce's daughter, Holly Ferguson, remembers her mother as a lovably stubborn person. She worked in the male-dominated IT field for years before deciding to get a post-graduate degree in Greek literature. When she was diagnosed with a rare form of Alzheimer's in her late 60s, she told Holly and her sisters she needed help. Ultimately, Pierce decided on Renaissance.
"We ... felt really comfortable there because they really portrayed that they we're able to care for mom," she said.
Ferguson said she hopes the indictment will prevent anything like this from happening to other families with loved ones in assisted care.
"What I most hope for is just an admission of responsibility and an assurance that this won't just be swept under the rug," she said, "that changes will be made."
