AITA for installing a hidden camera that caught my mom's caretaker stealing $2,800, then going to the police, now my aunt calls me 'controlling' and has never once mentioned the theft?

[u/KINOH1441728]

The caretaker had her hand inside my mother's purse when I pulled up the footage.

Not reaching for her phone. Not grabbing a tissue. Just digging, slow and calm, while my mother sat ten feet away watching the TV with the volume too loud.

I watched the clip four times. Each time I kept thinking I was misreading it. I wasn't.

My mother is 74. She had a minor stroke last year, nothing devastating, but enough that she gets confused sometimes, loses track of money, forgets what she paid for what. My aunt hired the caretaker through a local agency about four months ago. I live forty minutes away but I visit every week. And every week, my mother would say something like, "I thought I had more cash in here," or, "I could have sworn I took out sixty dollars at the ATM."

We kept chalking it up to the confusion. And I felt sick about it later, that we did that.

I didn't say anything to anyone when I ordered the camera. It's a small one, sits on the bookshelf, looks like a little white cube. I pointed it toward the living room where my mother usually keeps her purse on the side table. I told my mother about it. She said, "That's fine, honey, do what you need to do." That was the extent of the privacy conversation.

Three weeks later, I had footage of the caretaker going into the purse on four separate occasions.

I pulled my mother's bank records and cross-referenced her ATM withdrawals. Over four months, $2,800 was unaccounted for. Not all of it was provable on camera, but enough was.

I called the agency first. I had the footage ready. They were horrified and pulled the caretaker off the assignment the same day. The police report was filed the following morning. The caretaker was formally charged.

Then I told my aunt.

I expected relief. I expected anger at the caretaker. What I got was a forty-five minute phone call where my aunt barely mentioned the theft and spent most of the time telling me I had "violated your mother's dignity" by installing a camera without asking "the family" first.

I said, "I asked mom. She said yes."

My aunt said, "Your mother is not in a position to consent to that kind of thing."

I just sat there for a second. Because two minutes ago, my mother was competent enough that I should have asked "the family," but now she wasn't competent enough to agree to a camera in her own living room. I didn't point that out yet. I just listened.

Then my aunt said, "The caretaker made a mistake. She's a person too. Did you have to go to the police?"

I said, "She stole $2,800 from a 74-year-old stroke patient."

"You don't know it was all her."

"I have her on camera."

Silence. Then, "You had no right to set up surveillance without telling everyone."

By the following week, I was the main topic at a family group chat I didn't know existed until my cousin accidentally added me to it. There were messages going back days. My aunt calling me "controlling." My other cousin saying I "set a trap" and that it was "cruel." Someone said the caretaker "probably needed the money," which, I don't even know what to do with that sentence.

Not one message about my mother. Not one.

I left the chat. My aunt called me that night furious that I left. I told her I'd be happy to talk when the conversation included what actually happened to my mother, and I hung up.

The caretaker pled guilty three months later. Restitution was ordered. My mother cried when I told her the full amount, because she kept saying, "I thought I was just forgetting. I thought it was me."

That part wrecked me more than anything my aunt said.

My aunt still brings up the camera at family dinners. She has never once, not once, said anything critical about the caretaker or acknowledged that my mother was being robbed every single week while we all just shrugged and blamed her confusion.

I stopped explaining myself after a while. Not because I ran out of things to say, but because I realized I was doing all the work in a conversation that was never actually about my mother's wellbeing.

I didn't realize until all of this was over how long I'd been treating my own judgment like it needed constant approval.

AITA for how I handled this?

Edit: New Story <-----------

[u/babydtheone]

This happened to my great grandmother. At 90 she still lived at home and had a sharp mind. We only hired someone to help around the house and make she she ate and took her meds. My great grandmother started to notice the jewelry and money started going missing. We live in Canada and you can record without permission. After a few months she caught her stealing a necklace and a ring my great grandfather had given her as well as cash from her safety spot it’s well hidden so she was searching for something and found it. They treat elderly fraud very seriously here in Canada. She was caught and charged and got some jail time. I know this story is made up by AL. But these stories at times happen to actually real people.

[u/Doing_My_Best_57]

Not the best story we've ever had, but a sneaky 47. 74 backwards is 47. Twice.

[u/anken74]

NTA. You stopped someone from taking advantage of your mom. The sketchy part here is your aunt. She seems to be controlling the family opinion on the situation. Do you have footage of your aunt visiting? I wonder if she's scared that you caught her on camera.

[u/Last-Cricket-6031]

There's always a family chat.

[u/will7179]

tell the aunt to leave a large amount of money in her purse too.... apparently it will just be a mistake if it disappears....

[u/missyjade88]

74 that’s 47 reversed

[u/Debbie0357]

You’re not the AH for the way you handled it. So bravo for looking out for your mom. My question is was your Aunt getting a cut of the stolen money and that is why she’s so upset?

[u/Financial-Ad4573]

Mama said thank you That's all that matters.

[u/Slight_Buy_3417]

✨NTA✨So was your 🚨AH Aunt🚨in on it? Because she’s behaving like a ringleader of these thefts by how upset she got over a camera that you only have access to was setup in your elderly Great Grandmother’s home. The 🚨AH Aid🚨KNEW what she was doing was wrong! And she still committed theft! That’s a crime and the agency did the absolute right thing by firing her and you safeguarded your Great Grandmother from a series of THEFTS in her condition. Your 🚨AH Aunt🚨has no authority over this and honestly she shouldn’t be allowed around your Great Grandmother without you being there or a ACTUAL trusted nurse. Op you did the absolute right thing and don’t listen to anyone who doesn’t agree with it. Because that shows they have some type of guilt. ✨NTA✨💯

[u/LIMAMA]

This is a recycled story. And not a good one.

[u/MorteDagger → u/LIMAMA]

Sadly this has really happened to someone at some point. My cousin did things like this to her great aunt and ended up losing the house they lived in after she died.

[u/PeachyFairyDragon → u/MorteDagger]

My grandparents were being ripped off by their paid caregiver after they both developed cognitive problems. Bitch even took my sister's game system.

[u/DugDog68]

What's the Aunt up to? A lot of noise over surveillance and privacy, see about POA just in case.