A Macomb County Circuit Court judge dismissed a murder charge against a caretaker accused of killing an elderly man when she told a doctor to take him off life support after he suffered a stroke, saying the evidence showed the man died of natural causes.
The county prosecutor’s office disagrees, and filed an appeal with the Michigan Court of Appeals in April. It is asking the appellate court to reverse the circuit court decision. No court date has been set.
Linda Polk, then 53, of Clinton Township, was bound over in August on first-degree premeditated murder and seven other charges, including embezzlement from a vulnerable adult, forgery of a document, identity theft and possession of a financial transaction device, in the case.
She was arrested in April 2025, accused of obtaining a fraudulent power of attorney over retired lawyer Steven Zarnowitz, 78, and his wife, Jill Margolick, as well as a quit-claim deed to their home. The couple moved to Macomb County in 2024, according to preliminary exam testimony, after living in Farmington Hills.
Testimony indicated Zarnowitz hired Polk to provide in-home care for Margolick for several years after she had COVID-19 and became bedridden. Zarnowitz suffered a stroke Oct. 17, 2024, and was taken to McLaren Macomb Hospital in Mount Clemens. He died Oct. 19, 2024, and his body was cremated, according to testimony.
It indicated Polk was the only one listed as next of kin for Zarnowitz on paperwork and that she identified herself as his niece to a doctor, who testified that Polk made the decision to take him off life support.
She mentioned Zarnowitz as her dad when talking to a credit card company about a credit card in his name that was opened after his death, according to testimony. Polk is not related to Zarnowitz. A Clinton Township police detective testified that after Zarnowitz died, Polk opened up credit cards in his name, using one at multiple locations.
In March, Macomb Circuit Judge Matthew Sabaugh granted a motion to quash the murder charge filed by Polk’s attorney, writing in his opinion that the court does not find evidence presented during the preliminary exam that supports the charge and that the district court abused its discretion when it bound Polk over on the charge.
“The issue before this Court is whether Defendant caused the victim’s death. The People argue at length that the Defendant’s pre and post-homicide conduct demonstrates intent to kill. No doubt, this case is replete with financial fraud, however, the Court need not address Defendant’s intent because the evidence presented clearly demonstrates that the victim died from natural causes,” Sabaugh wrote.
He continued: “Michigan caselaw is clear, ‘the decision to terminate life-support treatment is not the cause of the patient’s subsequent death’ … The People have not presented authority that an unlawful surrogate decisionmaker is subject to criminal liability …. the testimony presented indicates the victim died from a naturally occurring medical event, a stroke, not Defendant’s decision to terminate life support.”
Prosecutors, in their appellate court application, wrote that they presented sufficient evidence during the preliminary exam to bind over Polk. They said the district court “accepted the prosecution’s theory that Defendant’s fraudulent instruction to terminate the deceased victim’s life-support directly caused his death and that, but for that instruction, the victim would have remained on life support — and alive — even if only briefly.”
They argue Polk’s “unlawful decision” to terminate his life support “was rooted in deception” and was the result of her “intentional choice, made after time for reflection, and it directly resulted in the immediate cessation of the victim’s life.”
“Defendant used the hospital to kill Zarnowitz; the doctors were her murder weapon,” prosecutors said.
Polk’s attorney, Steven Scharg, is asking the court to deny the prosecutor’s appeal. He wrote that Zarnowitz was in the intensive care unit, uncommunicative, on artificial life support with worsening condition and more than 95% unlikely to survive. He said a doctor presented Polk with a decision to either continue life support with cardiac arrest and painful end or removal of life support with comfort care end of life.
“She was sad, she chose the latter,” he wrote. “Removal of artificial life support was not the cause of death establishing murder. Regardless of the status of her decision-making ability. It was the stroke which brought him to this point and the end of life.”
He also wrote: “It is obvious the alleged financial crimes are the driving force of the murder charge. Such financial crimes are disturbing to be sure, but their existence here is incidental to the issue of cause of death.”
Sabaugh granted a motion April 23 to reduce Polk’s bond, setting it at $100,000 cash or surety with a steel cuff GPS tether prior to release. She was released from the county jail April 24, according to Sheriff’s spokeswoman Jennifer Putney. Polk was to surrender her passport and is to have no contact with the victim’s family or any banks involved in the case, according to online circuit court records.
Contact Christina Hall: chall@freepress.com. Follow her on X: @challreporter.
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This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Murder charge dismissed against caretaker in Macomb man’s death
Reporting by Christina Hall, Detroit Free Press / Detroit Free Press
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