CARY, N.C. _ A Wake County man charged with letting his mother die on the floor of their home while he ignored her calls for help said he had not given her prescription medicines for six days before he reported her death, new information from the sheriff's office shows.
The information also shows that the son, Eric Paul Brunner, had been prescribed "assorted psyc(h) meds" and two drugs to control his blood sugar.
Investigators arrested Brunner, 39, on March 13 on charges of second-degree murder and elder abuse. The next day, they applied for a search warrant to seize medicines from the house.
Cynthia Brunner, 74, was found dead at the bottom of a set of stairs on Feb. 19 after Eric Brunner called 911. Wake County EMS medics and sheriff's deputies were sent to the house at 6801 Marksman Way near Cary. The son told investigators that he knew she likely would die if he neglected her, they have said.
In his application for the search warrant, Investigator J.T. Willis said Brunner told authorities "that, though he was his mother's caregiver, he had failed to provide aid to her since Tuesday, Feb. 13, 2018."
In the warrant, returned to the court clerk's office on Tuesday, and in two previous search warrants, investigators have told magistrates that Brunner admitted he "willfully failed to assist" his mother "for some period of time" after she fell.
Eric Brunner "admitted to investigators that his mother was alive and made attempts to communicate with him for some time after falling," the search warrants have said.
When they obtained an arrest warrant charging Eric Brunner, deputies said the death and the abuse had happened between Feb. 13 and 19. They said they were awaiting autopsy results from the State Medical Examiner's office.
The warrant returned Tuesday is the first indication of why they listed that period in the charges.
"Mr. Brunner admits to having been in and out of the house, walking past his mother's corpse, for at least 24 hours if not longer," Willis has written.
All the warrant applications have cited Brunner's telling authorities that "he and his murder have had a tenuous relationship."
They also have stated, "He believes that she has as much as $30,000 in the bank that he would have access to after her death," although he had some access to Cynthia Brunner's finances already.
The warrant says that deputies took vials of Lantis and Noavalog, both used for insulin control, and "assorted psyc(h) meds for prescribed to (sic) Eric Brunner."
They seized diabetes test kits as well as a bottle of simviastatin for Cynthia Brunner. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration lists no drug called simviastatin, but simvastatin is a drug prescribed to control cholesterol and reduce the risk of heart failure.
The inventory in the search warrant also lists, "Bag containing 25 empty medication bottles, 8 assorted OTC (over the counter) medications/vitamins and 7 assorted meds for Cynthia Brunner."
Eric Brunner is being held without bail at the Wake County Detention Center.
When he had his first court appearance the day after his arrest, the colors of his jail uniform indicated he was being held in protective custody. One of his attorneys asked a judge to order that Brunner continue to receive medical treatment in jail, but she did not give details.
