Probation is the sentence for a 74-year-old woman who allegedly shunned modern medicine and let her ailing older sister languish in bed on the Olmsted County family farm until it was too late to save her life.

Shirley A. Kraemer, of High Forest Township, near Stewartville, Minn., was convicted Monday in Olmsted County District Court of felony criminal neglect of a vulnerable adult, causing great bodily harm.

Kraemer was immediately sentenced by Judge Pamela King to three years' probation and 30 hours of community service. Felony charges of second-degree manslaughter and another neglect charge were dismissed.

Kraemer's sister, 76-year-old Beverly J. Kraemer, died on Nov. 9, 2015, from a host of ailments, including septic shock and various skin and bone infections, according to an autopsy.

When emergency personnel were dispatched to the home three days earlier, they found Beverly Kraemer bedridden and her skin fused to the sheets, according to the criminal complaint. Several of the woman's ribs and a pelvic bone were exposed, the court document added.

Shirley Kraemer said that her sister had been bedridden for the past year and that she had been found by doctors 10 years ago to be suffering from rheumatoid arthritis that turned her swollen feet black, the charges read.

The deputy "gathered that Kraemer and [the] victim were suspicious of Mayo Clinic and evidently did not follow through with treatment," the complaint noted.

A neighbor told authorities that the sisters "did not believe in modern medicine, and [he] described them as 'paranoid,' " according to the charges.

Medical personnel determined that Beverly Kraemer did not eat in the two days before she died, that she had wounds left untreated, and that she was receiving no care or medications, the complaint read.

However, Kraemer's attorney argued in a presentencing filing seeking to have his client avoid incarceration that it was only the ailing sister who "adamantly refused medical treatment despite [Shirley Kraemer's] begging and attempts to convince Beverly otherwise. ... Beverly expressed her wish to die at home."

Attorney Thomas Braun went on to note that Shirley Kraemer had never been in trouble with the law before, showed remorse for her sister's death, was suffering from cancer and was a "low risk" to reoffend.

Paul Walsh • 612-673-4482