The family of William Gene Ray, an 83-year-old Navy veteran, has taken legal action against Florida‘s Waverly Assisted Living and Memory Care facility for wrongful death and negligence. The case dates back to September 26, 2025, when the octogenarian with dementia left his room and mistakenly entered the kitchen, where he remained trapped for four hours. According to reports, his family observed that he was missing from his room on a Ring camera and informed the staff.

According to Law & Crime, the lawsuit filed in May in Pasco County alleged that Ray had escaped, and when Florida’s care center staff searched for him, he was found in the freezer. He was reportedly shivering and barely conscious when he was found. He was later taken to the medical facility, where he passed away after suffering from hypothermia. His recorded body temperature was reportedly 66 degrees. Ray’s family alleged in its lawsuit that the facility failed to properly supervise and protect the Navy veteran.

The lawsuit argued that if the facility had been “properly staffed” or on-duty staff had been “alert and reasonably diligent,” an unattended Ray would’ve been “encountered and escorted to his room, thereby preventing his death.” It noted that if the kitchen doors were locked and secured while the ALF kitchen staff were not on duty, Ray wouldn’t have frozen to death.

Meanwhile, in an interview with ABC affiliate WFTS, Ray’s daughter Kristen Spencer recalled how she immediately headed to the facility after she observed that her father was missing from his room. Upon her arrival, she was put in a conference by Florida’s nursing home staff while they continued searching for him. She remembered the director coming in to inform her that they had found him in a freezer.

She said, “And I said, what do you mean he’s in the freezer? I couldn’t even believe the words that I was hearing. From there, it was just unbearable.” The lawsuit claims that the octogenarian had started living at the facility in May 2025, and ever since, he had been known to leave his room while looking for his spouse of 55 years, who did not reside at the facility. It states that he would enter into the rooms of other residents and would utter “incoherently,” noting that the staff had once found him walking outside.

The report states that as months passed by, he continued to show traits of confusion, at one point believing that it was the year 2010. The surveillance camera footage showed that Ray left his room at midnight, around 12:30 a.m. on the day of his death. He went unnoticed by the staff for the next four hours while he walked around the facility.

During that time, he entered and exited the kitchen multiple times, as per the lawsuit. At around 4:30 a.m., he allegedly walked into the freezer, and the door behind him accidentally closed, leaving him trapped inside. Shortly after 7 a.m., Ray’s family called the nursing home to report him missing; he was found in the freezer roughly an hour later.