Woman burglarized homes during funerals, New York officials say. She’s going to prison
A woman scanned through online obituaries before burglarizing the homes of six families attending funerals of their loved ones, New York prosecutors said.
Now she’s going to prison for up to 13 years.
Latonia Stewart, 30, was sentenced to 10 years in state prison and an indeterminate term of one to three years to run consecutively, a Nov. 22 news release from the Westchester County District Attorney’s office said.
Her actions were called a “coldhearted crime” in a statement by District Attorney Miriam E. Rocah.
Stewart “targeted individuals on one of the worst days of their lives knowing they wouldn’t be home, and stole their jewelry, valuables, letters and other keepsakes a spouse would cherish while grieving their loved one,” Rocah said, adding that she used a sledgehammer to break into some homes.
In October, a jury found Stewart guilty of multiple counts of second-degree burglary and fourth-degree criminal possession of stolen property.
Although she’s from the Bronx, a borough of New York City, she traveled up to 34 miles north to burglarize six homes of Westchester County residents who were away attending their spouse’s wake or funeral service between December 2017 and May 2018.
After she would target the families by perusing through obituaries, she would research one of the individuals online and pin down their address, locating the home on Google Street View, according to the release.
Once she broke in through a window or glass door with her sledgehammer, she “would ransack the victims’ master bedroom in search of valuable items once inside.”
Her crime spree came to an end when Greenburgh police observed her driving away from a deceased person’s home on May 1, 2018.
They stopped her and found jewelry inside her car as well as an online obituary pulled up on her phone.
Stewart was then arrested.
Afterward, police searched through her Bronx home and found more stolen jewelry and evidence including her sledgehammer and gloves that were in her car.
The case went before Westchester County Judge David Zuckerman, who said “instead of finding solace,” the victims “found chaos,” The Journal News reported.
“Their sanctuaries had been violated by this defendant... (She) cunningly victimized one grieving spouse after another.”
McClatchy News has reached out to the district attorney’s office for further comment.
This story was originally published November 23, 2021 at 1:31 PM with the headline "Woman burglarized homes during funerals, New York officials say. She’s going to prison."
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