BY DAN HILDEBRAN
Monitor Editor
STARKE— A woman who cleaned the home of a deceased elderly person was arrested after police determined she used a credit card linked to the victim’s account to withdraw nearly $22,000.
Trudy Lynn Randolph, 48, of Starke was arrested by Bradford deputies on March 24 for fraud and exploitation of an elderly person with losses between $10,000 and $50,000.
According to a sworn affidavit, the victim’s daughter discovered suspicious transactions on her mother’s bank statement after the mother’s death. The daughter told Starke police she believed the card belonged to the defendant.
Randolph told police she cleaned the victim’s house for approximately one year and that the victim gave her permission to link the card to the bank account in order for the defendant to repay student loans.
Randolph added that the victim authorized her to use up to $30,000 of the victim’s funds.
The defendant told police that the transactions stopped after the death of the victim. However, police found 15 transactions totaling $7,831 that occurred after the woman’s death.
Detective Jonathan Guinn wrote that Randolph could not produce any documentation of the agreement between herself and the victim, who was 99 at the time of her death.
