ALLEGHENY COUNTY In starvation death, charges upgraded to 1st-degree murder

Prosecutors say the woman stood to inherit big money if her brother died.
PITTSBURGH (AP) -- Charges were upgraded to first-degree murder for a suburban Pittsburgh woman accused of starving her quadriplegic brother to death after prosecutors alleged she was depositing checks for her brother into her husband's account.
District Justice Robert Dzvonick ruled Thursday that Allegheny County prosecutors could try 36-year-old Kimberly Loebig on the first-degree murder charge. She could face a death sentence or life in prison if convicted of Scott Olsen's death Dec. 7.
Dzvonick's ruling overturns a decision last week by the Allegheny County Coroner's Office.
Deputy Coroner Timothy Uhrich ruled that prosecutors lacked evidence showing Loebig planned to kill the 29-year-old Olsen -- a requirement for first-degree murder.
On Thursday, prosecutors presented bank records showing that four months before Olsen's death, Loebig began depositing $2,253 in monthly checks meant for him in her husband's account.
Inheritance
Prosecutors have suggested that Loebig stood to inherit nearly $250,000 if Olsen died. The money came from a legal settlement with the drugstore that sold a cigarette lighter Olsen huffed in 1990, leading to his injuries.
However, prosecutors declined Thursday to speculate on whether money was the motive.
Loebig's attorney, Paul Boas, has argued that Olsen's death was, at most, neglect by a woman overwhelmed by continually caring for her brother.
"There was no malice. There was no intent to kill," Boas said. He also said Olsen's death would financially harm Loebig, because she would no longer get his Social Security checks to help care for him.
Olsen was left in a semi-vegetative state after huffing a butane lighter another man bought from the store. He was left blind, quadriplegic and unable to speak more than a handful of words, authorities said. He needed a feeding tube and wore diapers.
During a medical checkup in September, the 6-foot-tall man weighed 112 pounds. When he died, he had withered to 63 pounds, authorities said.
Says she fed him
Loebig told authorities she had fed her brother a food supplement through a tube and given him water the day before he died. An autopsy, however, found only digested blood in his stomach.
Police found a cardboard box filled with unopened, rusting cans of a food supplement next to Olsen's bed, they said. According to a criminal complaint, Loebig called her aunt and uncle on Dec. 7 and said her brother had died. Her relatives say Loebig asked them to wait before calling paramedics so she and the aunt could clean up the room.
John McDermitt, Loebig's uncle, testified Loebig feared her children would be taken away if authorities saw the dirty house.