Many families are using paid home health aides. But what happens when all isn't as it seems?  By Rick Schmitt

When Denise Goodwin was hired to do housework and other chores in the San Diego home of Carolyn and Gerald Rabourn, she was welcomed with open arms. Carolyn, 91, in the final stages of lung cancer, was receiving home hospice care, and Gerald, 88, a lifelong tennis and health buff, was worn out from the daily grind of supporting and aiding his wife.

”He thought she was just wonderful.” Bill Mitchell, deputy district attorney in San Diego, says of Gerald Rabourn’s feelings for Goodwin. “He pretty much saw her as his angel."

But after Carolyn died, Goodwin didn`t just clean house; she started cleaning up.  First, she absconded with nearly $600.000 in assets, including title to the Rabourn home. Once the money was gone, Gerald Rabourn disappeared, too, under mysterious circumstances. Goodwin was arrested in 2011 as she was preparing to leave the country for a Mediterranean cruise, and was later charged with Gerald Rabourn's murder.

She sold the house and liquidated his stocks, pouring the money into condos. A suspicious neighbor called adult protective services, but the agency closed an investigation after Rabourn refused to cooperate. Based on phone and bank records, police believe Goodwin murdered Rabourn a month after arriving on the scene, although his body has never been found. She covered her tracks for several months by telling people that Rabourn had remarried and was on vacation. Mary Weaver, Rabourn’s daughter, who lived in Kansas City, filed a missing-persons report with San Diego authorities in February 2011 after her birthday passed without a card from her father, a missed ritual that to her was a telltale sign that something was profoundly wrong.

‘She was like a sociopath’

Denise Goodwin, 47, had worked as an assistant in an animal hospital before seeing the profit potential in working with humans. Prosecutors say she preyed on older men, trolling online senior dating services to find victims. She applied at a San Diego home-care agency, specifically requesting hospice duty. After she passed a background check, the agency assigned her to the Rabourn home in 2010. In short order, Goodwin plundered the estate, charming Gerald Rabourn into giving her control over his finances after his wife died.

Goodwin was convicted of murder by a San Diego County jury last October. She was sentenced Jan. 30 to life imprisonment without parole. Weaver, a chaplain who ministers to people at assisted living facilities, attended the sentencing and used the occasion to eulogize her father. Weaver was hoping that Goodwin would reveal the location of her father's body so he could be laid to rest, but instead, Goodwin sat emotionless in the courtroom. "She was like a sociopath," Weaver says. "Most people should understand, when you are putting someone in your home, you need to be sure this is who they say they are."