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    Follow CNN
    • Melanie Hicken
      Senior Writer, CNN Investigates

      Melanie Hicken is an award-winning investigative reporter for CNN. Her work has exposed everything from widespread sexual abuse in nursing homes to one of the longest-running scams in history. It has also inspired legislative action and government investigation. Email her at watchdog@cnn.com.

      Full Bio


    • Scenes from the room of an alleged victim in Haywood County on Wednesday, February 1, 2017. Luis Gomez is accused of sexually assaulting nursing home residents while working as a CNA.

      Sick, dying and raped in America's nursing homes

      The unthinkable is happening at facilities across the country: Vulnerable senior citizens are being raped and sexually abused by the very people paid to care for them.
    • An alleged victim snuggles with a doll she calls Little Missy in her room at a nursing home facility in Haywood County.

      Six women. Three nursing homes. And the man accused of rape and abuse.

      Luis Gomez appeared to many to be the perfect nursing aide. But now a different image has emerged.
    • The Brian Center in Waynesville, N.C., on Wednesday, February 1, 2017. Luis Gomez is accused of sexually assaulting nursing home residents while working as a CNA. He worked at The Brian Center most recently and most of the alleged victims who have come forward lived here.

      No one believed he would rape nursing home residents. Now he is going to prison

      By Blake Ellis and Melanie Hicken, CNN
      At first, no one believed them when they said the charming, well-liked aide in the nursing home where they lived had raped them.