COLORADO, USA — A home care hospice nurse has been sentenced to 32 years in prison for multiple charges of theft against a person at risk after her patients reported losses adding up to more than $100,000.
Crystal Harrison, 42, was trusted to care for the elderly, but instead preyed on and exploited them to enrich herself.
When questioned by police, Harrison told them she had wanted to enjoy some "quality of life for myself." Over the course of 2022, three families in different Colorado counties reported devastating financial losses.
Harrison had taken not just their money, but their sense of security.
For David Ward, the concept of trust has been a haunting question ever since Harrison entered his life.
“Who can you trust?” he said, reflecting on the three years that have passed since Harrison was employed as the hospice caregiver for his late wife, De Etta, through All Generations Home Care in Littleton, Colorado.
De Etta battled Parkinson's disease for over a decade, but by the summer of 2021, after suffering broken ribs, her family realized they needed professional help to care for her. Ward said that he and De Etta had spoken about death before, and she had expressed her wish to pass away peacefully at home.
Harrison was assigned to provide care for her starting in November 2021.
For a brief time, Harrison seemed to fulfill her role. She regularly visited the Wards' home, offering De Etta the care she needed in her final months.
"Crystal kind of won De Etta over pretty quickly," Ward said.
By Jan. 14, 2022, everything unraveled. David noticed the black bag containing their most treasured belongings felt lighter. Inside that bag, stored just inches from where De Etta lay in her bed, were money pouches. $40,000 in cash was missing and along with it went over $40,000 worth of jewelry.
"She had to take it while De Etta was in the same room,” he said. "[De Etta] couldn’t do anything, so she didn’t say anything.”
The theft was more than just a financial blow — it was a deeply personal violation. Among the stolen items were family heirlooms and De Etta’s engagement ring.
"The depression and everything it caused… it comes and goes," Ward said. "I looked at the wedding ring in that picture again, and I could feel the pain coming up.”
The same day, the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office arrived at the Wards’ home and urged them not to let Harrison return. Further investigation revealed that Harrison had an extensive criminal history: five felony convictions, prior theft misdemeanors, and she was on parole for fraud, burglary, and menacing when she was caring for De Etta.
"They're selling trust," Ward said. "The industry can't send known untrustworthy persons into people's homes saying this person is trustworthy. It astonishes me… you're no longer protecting the protected class."
While Ward doesn’t believe felons should be barred from employment altogether, he feels certain jobs — like hospice caregiving — should come with stricter scrutiny.
"I'm not going to say a felon shouldn't be hired for other jobs, but not for this job," he said.
The Wards weren’t Harrison’s only victims. After her time at All Generations, Harrison was hired by another home care company, Nurse Next Door, while still on parole.
Over the next several months, she stole thousands more from two elderly patients under her care in Denver and Jefferson counties.
Ward believes that if authorities had acted faster, the other families might have been spared. Surveillance footage showed Harrison using stolen credit cards to make smaller purchases like food and gas, but also bigger ones like a MacBook, a Meta Quest VR system and Nintendo Switch games.
Harrison's patients were 84 and 91 years old at the time she committed these crimes in November and December 2022. Nurse Next Door stated she remained on staff until June 2023, when she was ultimately terminated.
Since then, they said new ownership has taken over. The company requires background checks and does not hire individuals with felony convictions or parole status. All Generations Home Care did not respond to 9NEWS' requests for comment.
“What happens to those companies? Probably nothing right now. They'll just keep on going," Ward said.
Harrison now faces three separate prison sentences for her crimes: 10 years from Denver County, 17 years from Jefferson County, and, most recently, five years from Douglas County for her theft from the Wards.
These sentences will run concurrently, a detail that frustrates Ward.
“The five years that she’s getting for me is going to run concurrently, so she’s not being punished for anything she did in my house,” he said. “Is that justice? It doesn’t feel like it is.”
De Etta passed away on July 14, 2022, a few months after the theft. For Ward, the emotional toll lingers far beyond the stolen items, which were never recovered.
"That loss of trust… I don’t know how you recover from that,” he said.
In memory of De Etta, and in the hopes of sparing others from the same heartache, Ward is now advocating for systemic change in the caregiver industry. He believes companies should face consequences when they hire individuals who commit crimes against vulnerable patients.
“I don’t really feel there’s much of a safety net when things go wrong,” Ward said.
And for him, the stakes couldn’t be higher.