Home Health Aide Charged With Stealing Jewelry From Dying Woman

A home health aide was arrested on a larceny charge Saturday after she allegedly stole a gold necklace from the body of a dying woman in her care.

Chantelle Rivera, 37, employed by Companions & Homemakers of Fairfield, stole the necklace, valued at $500, from the neck of a terminally ill and unresponsive woman on Carroll Road, police said.

Police Sgt. Sue Lussier, a department spokesman, said the 83-year-old woman's daughter had let Rivera "say her final goodbye" to her mother and then noticed the gold necklace missing from her mother's neck and called police Friday night. Rivera admitted to stealing the necklace and brought it to the Fairfield Police Department on Saturday, along with two gold hoop-style earrings, valued at $250, that she had stolen from the terminally ill woman at a different time, police said.

"These types of cases don't go unnoticed and they don't go unsolved. The elderly are all too often victimized," Lussier said.

Martin Acevedo, general counsel of Companions & Homemakers of Fairfield, said the company, for the past 20 years, has conducted "comprehensive background checks of all its employees, and this was not an exception."

Acevedo said Rivera's background check came in clear and that Rivera had worked directly for the daughter of the deceased woman before and had been highly recommended by the daughter.

"These caregivers were initially hired by the family, and, when we hired them through our agency, these folks came in very well recommended by the family of the victim," Acevedo said, adding that another caregiver worked for the victim through the family and then through Companions & Homemakers of Fairfield. Acevedo said Rivera is no longer employed by the company.

Police said Rivera, of Lyme Street in Windsor, came to the Police Department about 1 a.m. Saturday and was charged with fifth-degree larceny. She was released on a promise to appear in Bridgeport Superior Court Aug. 16, police said.

The theft was reported to police at 9:33 p.m. Friday, police said.