AUSTIN, TX—A Texas woman has been charged with felony theft from a corpse after admitting to police that she stole pornography and coins from the dead man’s apartment while the body was in it. Her macabre excuse was that the porn really belonged to her.
Linda Dynell Rushing, 43, faces two years in jail for theft from a corpse, a felony in Texas.
Rushing told police that she had known the deceased man, Samuel Stewart, 51, for about three months, and had stayed at his apartment several times. She said she found him unconscious and covered in vomit on the porch of his apartment building on July 26, and moved him inside his apartment with the help of some neighbors.
According to an affidavit, neighbors found Stewart’s body the following day, inside the apartment in the same spot where he had been left the previous day. When police arrived, they found his wallet next to the body with its content scattered on the floor.
Police questioned Rushing, who at first denied that she had taken anything. According to kxan.com, investigators questioned her again in early September, when she admitted that she had taken some coins and pornography but that she was merely reclaiming the porn, which she had previously sold to Stewart for $20 but for which she had not been paid.
The Travis County medical examiner's office has determined that Stewart died of natural causes.
