Family's disgust after elderly man is found dead in closet of nursing facility

An outraged family is demanding to know why a Florida rehab facility told them their missing father had signed himself out - days before his body was found rotting in one of its closets.

Elin Etienne, 71, had been at the North Dade Nursing and Rehabilitation Center for just eight days before he disappeared.

But staff refused to show the discharge form to his bewildered family who spent a week scouring the city for the former chef before an anonymous staff member called them on Monday to say he had been found dead on site.

'We still have to find out if he was put in the closet,' said niece Rivly Breus.

'We just don't know, and I don't want that to happen to another patient.'

The 'loving, selfless' family man suffered from dementia and was admitted on August 14 for what was supposed to be a 12-week stay after suffering two strokes which left him unable to walk.

Six days later his family saw him for the last time when Breus brought him flowers, balloons and a new pair of shoes.

On August 22 the family heard that he had disappeared.

'We received a message from someone's personal phone that said we can't find him,' niece Kimberly Etienne told NBC.

'So we called the nursing home and spoke to a nurse and they said he checked himself out.

'When they said he checked himself out, we pleaded with them for the form to verify his signature. They refused.

'So we called the police to do a formal missing person's report.'

The North Miami Police Department began investigating and published a missing person's alert on Facebook as the family began distributing fliers in an attempt to track him down.

But on Monday morning they returned to the rehab center after receiving a second devastating call from an anonymous staff member.

'They said they found him in a closet and he was already decomposing, and they refused to let us see the body,' said granddaughter Ruth Keisha Etienne.

'And we tried to speak to the nursing home people, but they refused to speak to us.

'They don't want to talk to us. I wonder why?' 

The devastated family watched on as his body was wheeled into a coroner's van and more than a dozen members gathered to demand answers at a protest on Monday evening.

They fear he may have spent days dying in the closet without food, water or medication before he was finally found.

'That's horrifying because that means he died alone and he died suffering,' said Breus.

'The entire family is here, and there's been no answers,' Kimberly added.

North Miami Police have begun an investigation as the family tries to piece together how Etienne could have disappeared under the noses of nursing home staff.

'We just got the call saying he went missing, and we are like, OK?' said his granddaughter.

'We went there and talked to them, just trying to get to the bottom of it.

'They told us he signed an AMA, which means he refused medical help, and we were asking for the documents and to see his signature, and they refused to let us see that.'

'They kept on saying that he signed himself out and that he didn't want anything to do with his family,' Breus added.

'That's impossible because he has dementia.'

The rehab center issued a statement on Tuesday insisting that it would co-operate with any investigation by law enforcement or state regulators.

'Our thoughts and condolences go out to the family members affected by this devastating event,' it added.

Etienne, who arrived in the US 30 years ago from Haiti, was remembered by his family as a hard-working and caring man who always put them first.

'There was no such thing as him coming around and not lighting up a room with a joke, with laughter, with humor,' said Kimberly.

They now fear his body may be too decomposed to return for burial next to his mother on the Caribbean island.

'It's like a movie, a terrible horror film,' Kimberly said. 'Now we have to seek justice because we can't even give him a proper burial.

'He was just an honest person, and this is not the way we wanted to send him off.'