The Guardianship Pipeline: How Oregon Law is Used to Isolate the Elderly and Drain Their Assets

By Valor Investigations

Published August 12, 2025

BAKER CITY, OR – On February 5, 2024, the Baker County Circuit Court made a solemn determination: Jean Ileen McSherry, 73, was legally "incapacitated" and "financially incapable," a person in "danger of serious physical injury, illness, and death" if left without the protection of a court-appointed guardian.

That legal protection, however, has become her prison.

An investigation by Valor Investigations, based on hundreds of pages of court documents, reveals that the guardianship system itself is being used to isolate Ms. McSherry from her community and systematically liquidate her life savings. The actions taken under the court's authority appear to stand in direct violation of the very Oregon laws and administrative rules designed to prevent elder abuse.

The Pipeline: From a Portland Home to a Rural Facility

This story begins not in Baker County, but 298 miles away in Portland, where Jean McSherry and her twin sister Jayne lived their entire lives. In January 2024, a cousin, Annie McSheery-Bood, moved the sisters to her home in rural Haines, Oregon. Just two days later, on January 17, 2024, she petitioned the Baker County court for an emergency guardianship.

The petition claimed a sudden crisis, allowing the proceeding to move forward without notifying the twins' only brother, Lynn McSherry. Court records show it took friends and family three months just to locate the sisters after they vanished from their Portland home. The consequences were swift and devastating. Within three months of the move, Jayne Peters was dead. Jean McSherry remains in the Memory Lane Homes facility in Baker City, telling anyone who will listen that she wants to go home.

Isolation Under Color of Law: A Catalogue of Violations

The most alarming aspect of Ms. McSherry's case is the wall of isolation built around her, seemingly in direct contravention of Oregon law. Armed with the court's authority, the guardian has barred Ms. McSherry's pastor, her best friend of 43 years, and more than a dozen other friends and former paramedic colleagues from any visitation or communication.

In a formal referral to the Baker County District Attorney, this journalist has alleged that this isolation is not just cruel, but criminal. The guardian’s actions appear to violate the following statutes:

• ORS 124.050 – Elder Abuse: This statute defines elder abuse to include "involuntary seclusion... for the convenience of a caregiver." By creating a sweeping "exclusion list" without a documented safety rationale, the guardian's actions fit the description of this crime.
• ORS 125.323 – Limits on Association: A guardian cannot limit a protected person's preferred associations without a specific court order finding that those associations cause "unreasonable harm." The court has made no such finding. Yet, the isolation continues.
• OAR 411-051-0105 – Residents' Rights: The Oregon Administrative Rules governing care facilities guarantee residents the right "to receive visitors at any time" and to have "freedom of movement." The enforcement of the guardian's exclusion list by Memory Lane Homes, a facility with keypad-locked doors, appears to violate these core rights. The required Involuntary Behavior Limitation (IBL) process to legally restrict these rights has not been followed.
• First Amendment – Free Exercise of Religion: By barring a pastor and church members, the guardian is infringing on Ms. McSherry's fundamental constitutional rights without lawful justification.

This is not protection; this is imprisonment, carried out without the specific court order required by law.

Draining the Estate of the "Financially Incapable"

While isolated, the estate of the woman the court deemed "financially incapable" has been aggressively liquidated. Court records show a torrent of fees paid to the guardian and her attorney:

• Guardian Fees: Over $48,000 has been requested by the guardian, billing at a rate of $100 per hour for tasks that include shopping, driving, and hiring her own husband as a handyman.
• Attorney Fees: Over $58,000 in legal fees have been billed by the guardian's attorney, Darcy Arriola Kindschy of Intermountain Law, P.C.

In just over a year, legal and guardian fees have consumed more than $100,000 of Ms. McSherry's estate, while her lifelong home was sold out from under her for $391,000.

This is the grim reality of the guardianship pipeline: A vulnerable person is declared unable to manage their own affairs, only to have their assets consumed by the very fiduciaries appointed to protect them.

A Systemic Problem

The case of Jean McSherry does not exist in a vacuum. It shares key players with the case of Russell Bingaman, who died under a guardianship in neighboring Union County. The same court visitor and some of the same attorneys appear in both cases, suggesting a repeatable playbook for gaining control over vulnerable adults and their assets.

This investigation raises urgent questions for officials in Baker County and across Oregon. When the legal determination of "incapacity" becomes the key that unlocks an elder's life savings and locks the door on their friends and family, the system of protection has failed. It has become a system of predation.