A 72-year-old woman from Deltona, Florida, got quite a surprise on
Sunday morning after she found a strange woman in her house wearing her
husband's pajamas.
It wasn’t her husband’s secret lover, as it turned out. It was
22-year-old Eryn Rice, who decided to hole up in the house while hiding
from deputies that she escaped from earlier that morning while being
handcuffed for shoplifting, according to Gary Davidson of the Volusia
County Sheriff’s Office.
Rice took the opportunity to wash her clothes in the couple's washing
machine, take a shower, and slip into a pair of flannel pajamas, Davidson said.
Now, rather than just facing shoplifting charges, Rice faces a long list
of criminal charges that include retail theft, resisting an officer
with violence, battery on a law-enforcement officer, giving a false
name, escape, burglary and petty theft, according to Davidson.
Deputies also arrested an accomplice who was driving Rice’s getaway car,
the Sheriff’s Office said.
The entire incident began shortly before 6:30am when Rice was seen
shoplifting several hundred dollars’ worth of cosmetics from a CVS
Pharmacy, Davidson said.
Before she exited the store, her accomplice, 25-year-old John Willey,
realised deputies spotted him in his car and drove off, according to the
Sheriff’s Office.
A deputy apprehended Rice as she left the store and got one handcuff on
her left wrist, but she became combative, spun around, shoved the deputy
to the ground, and took off running, according to the Sheriff’s Office
report.
Deputies first checked Willey’s house, but Rice wasn’t there.
Later, just before 11:30am, the 72-year-old couple flagged down deputies
and asked if they were looking for a woman.
The couple explained that after the husband left to play golf that
morning, the wife found a strange woman in the house wearing her
husband’s pyjamas. She called her husband and demanded an explanation.
When he came home, the husband insisted that he wasn’t having an affair with the intruder and had never seen her before.
The couple agreed to drive Rice to a residence less than a mile away,
the Sheriff’s Office report said.
Later, the couple found one of Rice’s socks and a pair of panties in
their washing machine.
Deputies returned to the home where she'd been dropped off in time to
see Willey driving off, according to Davidson. Willey was trying to hide
Rice, who was hiding on the floor of his vehicle, Davidson said. Both
were arrested.
In addition to the other charges, Rice was also arrested on a warrant
out of Osceola County for a probation violation associated with a
grand-theft charge.
Willey was charged with being an accessory after-the-fact to robbery and
harbouring an escaped prisoner.
Deputies later found the discarded handcuffs that Rice managed to slip
out of, not far from the CVS, the Sheriff’s Office said. Davidson said
they also found two syringes on Rice and another one, which contained
methamphetamine residue, in the car.
Rice is in custody on $44,000 bail, while Willey is being held on
$20,000 bail.
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