SEQUIM — A couple arrested on allegations of abuse and mismanagement at a small care home for the elderly will return to court this afternoon to face possible charges.

Carolyn Sue Hardwick and her husband, John K. Packer, are both scheduled for a hearing at 1 p.m. in Clallam County Superior Court for the filing of formal charges.

They were arrested Friday by Sequim police and booked into the Clallam County jail on investigation of manslaughter and criminal mistreatment.

During their first court appearances Monday, visiting Judge David Armstrong released Hardwick, 58, and Packer, 33, on their own recognizance, to stay in Clallam County pending the outcome of their case.

A phone call to the couple’s Sequim residence Tuesday afternoon, seeking comment, rang multiple times before being picked up by a fax machine.

Three-year probe

Sequim police say the pair’s arrests are the culmination of a three-year investigation into the operation of Garden Grove Adult Family Care Facility, which was owned and operated by Hardwick and Packer in their private residence.

The facility, at 510 Pine Court, was shut down by the state Department of Social and Health Services in November 2002 after DSHS investigated complaints and allegedly found evidence of patient abuse, neglect and financial exploitation.

The following month, police began investigating the care practices at the facility.

The manslaughter allegations are based on the deaths of three elderly patients, all in their 80s, at Garden Grove in 2001 and 2002, according to police.

In those cases, one woman received no emergency treatment in the nine hours leading to her death, another woman who died from congestive heart failure had evidence of suspicious bruising, and a man suffered through several days of progressive health deterioration without receiving direct care from a doctor, according to police and court records.