Cops couldn’t find an elderly woman’s stolen $2,400 rings — until they looked in a pawn shop
It was early morning at Quality Healthcare nursing home near Orlando and patients were eating breakfast.
Nursing Assistant Jakovee Gray walked into one of the elderly patient’s rooms to pick up her breakfast tray. Before leaving the room, Gray asked if she wanted her to clean her rings and then took them off her fingers.
As time passed, the 88-year-old patient was getting worried that Gray hadn’t returned with the rings. First, she prayed for their return. Then she walked out of her room and began yelling that someone had stolen her rings.
One was a gold band with a dark yellow gem worth $1,500; the other was a gold wedding band worth $950.
When Winter Garden police arrived an hour later on Nov. 17, they spoke with Gray, who recounted how she came in to take the breakfast tray, but said she never touched or took the rings from her, according to police. After a body search, police didn’t find anything.
Police didn’t search her bag, car or other rooms she had been in.
Three hours after being searched by police, Gray drove to La Familia Pawn in Haines City in Polk County, an hour away. She walked in and pawned both rings, said police, who did not say for how much.
Over the course of the next few weeks, police discovered she had pawned the rings, interviewed the pawn shop owner and watched video of her signing the pawn contract and getting the money.
After a warrant was put out for her arrest, Gray, 30, of Avon Park, was arrested Wednesday.
She was charged with grand theft and exploiting the elderly. She remains in jail on a $15,000 bond.
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