Patient Dies Before Return Of $30K Ring Stolen From Her Finger

OKLAHOMA CITY, OK — Police have found Trela Wishon’s mother’s stolen wedding ring at an Oklahoma City pawn shop, but it wasn’t returned in time for the dying woman to see it again. The ring was stolen from the elderly woman’s finger in November while she lay in a deep, Ambien-induced sleep at a skilled nursing home, her daughter wrote.

The ring is a monument to Wishon’s mother’s marriage more than 60 years ago. She added stones as her budget allowed, and on her 50th and 60th wedding anniversaries, she added diamond-studded bands and fused them to the original ring.

“She was so proud of that set of rings,” Wishon told television station KFOR, “so very proud of it.”

The woman died over the weekend before she could see her rings — pawned for $475, but worth about $30,000. An employee at the pawn shop recognized the ring from photos and alerted police, KFOR reported.

Wishon said on Facebook that her mother, who had been a patient at the Accel at Crystal Park skilled nursing facility, had refused to take Ambien, a drug prescribed for insomnia, days before the rings were stolen in late November.

Wishon said she’s frustrated by the care center’s response to the theft and has questions about why her mother was given Ambien after her mother refused it. She wrote that she has requested her mother’s medical records, but her “opinion is that somebody kept it back and gave it to her the night her ring was stolen.”

“Sort of like a premeditated theft,” she wrote.

Accel at Crystal Park did not immediately return Patch’s request for comment.

A detective for the Oklahoma City Police Department told Wishon last week the rings had been pawned. That was the good news, she told the television station. The bad news: “The pawn shop is still wanting to maintain ownership of those rings because they forked out $475 for them,” Wishon said.

It’s not unusual for crime victims and the pawn shop to fight out ownership in court, even if a Good Samaritan steps in and offers to square things with the pawn shop.

“On cases like this, we are required to let that go before a judge and let a judge determine who gets the property, what the financial interest in it is for both sides and how that can be worked out,” MSgt. Gary Knight with the Oklahoma City Police Department told KFOR.

A nurse at the care center is a suspect and a felony warrant will be issued for her arrest, the report said.

Wishon hopes she will be able to get the rings back before her mother is buried.

Wishon, who identified herself on Facebook as a retired detective for the Oklahoma City Police Department, said in the comments on her post that she has investigated “several cases like this” while working the department’s Larceny Unit.

“I never dreamed it would happen to my mom!” she wrote.

Photo via Shutterstock