Woman charged with stealing $10 ring off dead woman in funeral home

The glass ring was only worth $10. But it symbolized Lois Hicks’ ardent devotion to her husband who died three years ago.

So when Hicks died at age 88 last week, her family decided to bury the ring with her.

That was the plan anyway.

On Friday, as Hicks lay in an open casket at Sunset Funeral Home in Odessa, Texas, a woman stole the ring off her finger.

She ripped it off so forcefully that she tore the skin on Hicks’ finger.

The incident was caught by one of the funeral home’s surveillance cameras.

“It makes me sick to my stomach,” Vel McKee, Hicks’ daughter, told the Odessa American. “Horrible. I hope they catch her.”

And now police say they have.

Odessa police on Tuesday arrested 41-year-old Kalynn Homfeld on a charge of theft from a human corpse.

Online Ector County jail records didn’t yet list custody or attorney information for Homfeld.

“Right now, I’m getting called about every 15 minutes about this from national media,” Odessa police spokesman Steve LeSueuer said on Monday.

“I think mainly just because it’s so unique. It’s a $10 ring, but just because it’s very rare for this to happen.”

This story was originally published April 12, 2016 at 10:54 AM with the headline "Woman charged with stealing $10 ring off dead woman in funeral home."