With Friends Like These…

How’s this for friendship? A couple in Hanover Township, Pa., are accused of stealing a bank card belonging to a friend – who collapsed and died at their home – and buying $1,100 worth of stuff.

According to the Wilkes-Barre Times Leader, Hanover Township police arrested Michael Wheaton, 25, and his girlfriend, Sabrina Tomcho, 20, on Dec. 29 and charged them with bank card theft. They were released on bail, but Wheaton was immediately arrested again on accusations he stole some empty beer kegs from a restaurant. They’re scheduled to be formally arraigned on the theft charges April 1.

The unfortunate tale began Dec. 4, when Kimberly Rose Lacey, 40, was visiting her friends Wheaton and Tomcho at their house. It’s not clear from the media coverage what the cause of death was, but The AP reported that investigators believe the couple went through Lacey’s purse while emergency workers were attending to her.

An ambulance rushed Lacey to Wilkes-Barre General Hospital, where she was pronounced dead.

According to a criminal complaint, Wheaton and Tomcho told police they used Lacey’s bank card to buy nearly $1,100 worth of items from local stores like Wal-Mart, several gas stations and a Best Buy the day after the woman’s death.

Lacey’s husband Matthew was in mourning when he received a call from his bank asking about the increased level of activity on her account.

Lacey said he had given his wife $250 to buy Christmas presents, and that there was also bank and credit cards, as well as prescription medicine in her purse. But when he picked it up at the hospital, only her ID card was inside.

“This is lower than a snake,” Myra Nesbitt, a friend of the Laceys, is quoted in the Times Leader. “This is really sickening, to steal from a deceased woman. (Wheaton and Tomcho) were supposed to be friends of ours, and look at what they did.”