{"id":130102,"date":"2025-08-08T21:56:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-08T21:56:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/130102\/"},"modified":"2025-08-08T21:56:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-08T21:56:09","slug":"heat-exposure-linked-to-disabled-phoenix-patients-death","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/130102\/","title":{"rendered":"Heat exposure linked to disabled Phoenix patient\u2019s death"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"text | text-start article-text\"><b>PHOENIX (AZFamily)<\/b> \u2014 The Maricopa County Office of the Medical Examiner has released its report into the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.azfamily.com\/2025\/04\/16\/phoenix-caretaker-arrested-after-patient-with-disabilities-dies-his-care\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.azfamily.com\/2025\/04\/16\/phoenix-caretaker-arrested-after-patient-with-disabilities-dies-his-care\/\">April death of a disabled group home patient <\/a>in Phoenix.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | text-start article-text\">The report states that 50-year-old William Henry Miller\u2019s primary cause of death was likely an irregular heartbeat linked to hardened arteries, but environmental heat exposure and other medical conditions, including a long-term brain condition, may have played a role.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | text-start article-text\">Temperatures at the time were around 100\u00b0F.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | text-start article-text\">Miller died on April 10 after being left unattended in a van outside his group home. His caretaker, Nuru Niyonkuru, was arrested and charged with vulnerable adult abuse.<\/p>\n<p>A Phoenix group home caretaker was arrested for physical abuse after a disabled patient died in his care.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | text-start article-text\">Court paperwork revealed that Niyonkuru admitted to drinking a small bottle of Crown Royal before his shift and was supposed to take Miller to an appointment before cancelling and taking Miller to his apartment.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | text-start article-text\">The arresting documents state that the two later went out to purchase more alcohol before returning to the group home. Niyonkuru left Miller in the van and asked someone inside the home to keep an eye on him.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | text-start article-text\">Miller was later found slumped over and unresponsive in the van. Paramedics were called, but he was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | text-start article-text\">Other group home employees told detectives that Niyonkuru had a drinking problem and was known to drink during his shift at least once or twice per week.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | text-start article-text\">See a spelling or grammatical error in our story? <a href=\"https:\/\/www.azfamily.com\/page\/send-us-your-feedback\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Please click here to report it<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | text-start article-text\">Do you have a photo or video of a breaking news story? Send <a href=\"https:\/\/www.azfamily.com\/community\/user-content\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">it to us here<\/a> with a brief description.<\/p>\n<p class=\"copyright |\">Copyright 2025 KTVK\/KPHO. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PHOENIX (AZFamily) \u2014 The Maricopa County Office of the Medical Examiner has released its report into the April&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":130103,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5131],"tags":[5229,5643,1587,7182,79270,73452,79267,79271,79268,1589,79269,7183,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,79272],"class_list":{"0":"post-130102","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-phoenix","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-arizona","10":"tag-az","11":"tag-azfamily","12":"tag-disabled-group-home","13":"tag-elder-abuse","14":"tag-group-home","15":"tag-group-home-abuse","16":"tag-heat-death","17":"tag-phoenix","18":"tag-phoenix-heat-death","19":"tag-phoenix-news","20":"tag-united-states","21":"tag-united-states-of-america","22":"tag-unitedstates","23":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","24":"tag-us","25":"tag-usa","26":"tag-vulnerable-patient-abuse"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114995382436660515","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130102","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=130102"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130102\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/130103"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=130102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=130102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=130102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}