Cape Cod man charged with manslaughter 71-year-old mother’s 2024 death

Prosecutors say a Cape Cod man has been indicted in connection with the death of his 71-year-old mother last year.

The woman, whose name was not released, died at Cape Cod Hospital on July 30, 2024. Days earlier, on July 24, she was found unconscious and bleeding from a cut to the head in a home in Sandwich, Massachusetts. She had also suffered a broken neck.

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Cape & Islands District Attorney Robert Galibois announced Friday that 23-year-old Thomas Hayes of Sandwich had been indicted on charges of manslaughter and assault and battery on a person 60 or older causing serious bodily injury.

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Hayes told investigators at the time "that he had pushed the 71-year-old unconscious female, and that she had fallen to the floor," the district attorney's office wrote in a press release.

According to prosecutors, Hayes was on probation at the time of the incident. He was sentenced to a year at the Barnstable House of Correction for violating that probation.

Hayes will be arraigned in Barnstable Superior Court at a future date, prosecutors said. It was not immediately clear if he had an attorney.