Robert Meyer arrived at Forest Hills Healthcare Center in Anderson Township about 15 minutes after being discharged from Mercy Health Anderson Hospital on September 1, 2025, with a bruise on his neck. Five days later, he was dead. What followed was a year of shifting medical paperwork, a disinterred body, and now a wrongful death lawsuit accusing a nursing home, a hospice provider and a funeral home of failing to investigate or report his injuries before he was buried.
A Bruise Noticed, Then Buried With Him
According to WCPO 9 Cincinnati, Mercy Health Anderson Hospital documented no injuries on Meyer’s neck or chest at the time of his discharge. Meyer, who reportedly had trouble remembering his own room number and the name of his nursing home, was later transferred to a hospice facility in Blue Ash before he died. His death certificate initially listed protein-calorie malnutrition as the cause of death, and the medical director at Hospice of Cincinnati signed that certificate on September 11, 2025.
An autopsy was conducted on September 22, 2025, but it wasn’t until Meyer’s daughter, Tammy Maham, pushed back against what the station’s report describes as repeated dismissals from nursing home, hospice and funeral home staff that the case moved forward. Maham took timestamped photographs showing finger-like blue and black marks on her father’s neck directly to the Hamilton County Sheriff’s Office, according to a statement from law firm Nurenberg Paris. Those photos prompted the coroner to order Meyer’s exhumation and open a criminal investigation, the firm says.
Homicide Ruling Followed Exhumation
Meyer was disinterred after his daughter raised concerns about his care, per the same account, and a follow-up autopsy documented injuries to his neck and rib cage. The Hamilton County Coroner ultimately changed Meyer’s cause of death classification from natural causes to homicide. Attorney Jeff Heller, who is representing Meyer’s family, said the coroner had amended the cause of death to undetermined in March before the classification was later revised further, this time listing physical elder abuse as the immediate cause of death and homicide as the manner of death.
Nurenberg Paris, whose account provides the forensic detail behind that reclassification, reports that the autopsy following exhumation documented severe neck contusions with internal spinal bleeding, a fractured sternum, multiple bilateral rib fractures, and severe protein-calorie malnutrition. The coroner noted that the physical injuries appeared less than 24 hours after Meyer was discharged from the hospital with no recorded injuries, the firm’s account states.
Lawsuit Details Weeks of Alleged Neglect
The lawsuit names Forest Hills Healthcare Center, its parent company CommuniCare Health Services, the Margret J. Thomas Inpatient Care Center, E.C. Nurre Funeral Home, treating physicians and a medical transport company as co-defendants, according to Nurenberg Paris. Heller told WCPO the medical care providers involved were negligent in Meyer’s care and said he had never seen abuse like this before…