Quadriplegic Starved, Sister Held

A woman kept her quadriplegic younger brother in a filthy room and deprived him of food and water until he starved to death, police said.

Kimberly Loebig, 36, was arrested Tuesday on criminal homicide charges stemming from the death of her brother, 29-year-old Scott Thomas Olsen, who was found by paramedics Dec. 7 in his sister's suburban Pittsburgh home.

Olsen, who was more than six feet tall, weighed 63 pounds, police said. "He looked like a Holocaust victim," said Lt. Tom Haser.

Loebig, of Shaler, told authorities she had fed her brother a food supplement through a tube and given him water the day before he died, police said. 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, Olsen also had sores on his body and insects crawling on him.

Loebig was being held in the Allegheny County Jail on $25,000 bond. Her husband, Timothy Loebig, did not return a phone call Tuesday evening. It was unclear if she had an attorney.

Allegheny County District Attorney Stephen Zappala suggested money may have been the motive.

Loebig, her brother's sole caretaker, stands to inherit $250,000 from her brother as part of a 1996 settlement with a drugstore. Olsen was left in a semi-vegetative state after inhaling butane another man bought from the store in 1990. His injuries left him blind, quadriplegic and unable to speak more than a handful of words, authorities said.