Family pursuing justice for Valley woman who died last year after power was turned off

SUN CITY WEST — A family is on a mission for change following the loss of their mother to extreme heat last year after APS shut off her power due to missed payments.

Temperatures soared to 102 degrees in the days after 82-year-old Kate Korman’s air conditioning was shut off by the utility company on May 13, 2024. The Sun City West woman was found dead six days later.

Kate’s death was a private family tragedy for a year, until it suddenly wasn’t. On April 24, Arizona Corporation Commission Vice Chair Nick Myers posted on X that he was “sure the family doesn’t want made public what we found” when it came to an investigation into Korman’s death. That post caught the attention of Kate’s son, Adam, who responded, kicking off a series of posts from Myers that ended with the key figure tasked with regulating APS blaming Kate’s children for her death.

“I’m not just blaming your mom, I’m more blaming you for not looking out for your elderly mom,” Myers wrote. “I refuse to tell utilities that they have to provide power to people that do not pay their bills. To be honest, I’m not even happy about many of the programs that they have in place to help, but I understand the need for them.”

Myers went on in his posts to say that, “I don’t feel it is a utilities [sic] responsibility to keep everyone alive,” that Korman’s death is “not a problem that the rest of society should shoulder,” and that Kate’s sons had “failed to protect their mother.”

The posts have left both Adam and his brother Jonathan shaken up. The men, who live out of state, tell ABC15 their mother never told them she hadn’t paid her APS bill, or that her air conditioning had been shut off.

Read the full story from ABC15 Arizona here.

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