By Jeremy Roebuck, The Philadelphia Inquirer (TNS) An overseer appointed by judges to manage the finances of more than 100 elderly or incapacitated Pennsylvania residents instead regularly drained their life savings and retirement nest eggs, spending more than $1.5 million on luxury cars, vacations, and parties. And while Gloria Byars, owner of Lansdowne-based Global Guardian Services, was set to finally face sentencing this month, more than seven years after her crimes first came to light, her victims say they’ve been left feeling robbed again — this time of their opportunity for justice.
Byars, 63, of Aldan, was found dead Aug. 9 in her Delaware County home — days after a judge had been forced to twice reschedule her sentencing hearing due to a last-minute hospitalization for ailments prosecutors have suggested Byars made up or exaggerated to avoid her day of reckoning. She was facing up to 13 1/2 years behind bars.
She died just hours after her release from the hospital under an active warrant for her arrest. And though toxicology reports remain pending, her death is being investigated as a possible suicide, according to two local law enforcement sources familiar with the matter. For Heidi Austin — whose discovery of Byars’ regular thefts from her aunt and uncle in 2017 led to the unraveling of the financial guardians’ wider crimes — the sudden demise delivered an unsatisfying conclusion to what has been a frustrating and eye-opening brush with the state syst.