ATLANTA (WANF/Gray News) – Seven people are accused of taking over a dead man’s home in Georgia while his body was still inside. Detectives say they also stole his money, electronics and car.
When Cobb County Police responded to a home in Smyrna for a welfare check at the beginning of October, they found 71-year-old Robert Westbrook dead in a bathtub, WANF reports.
“He was in a severe state of decomposition. It’s called mummification,” Detective Daniel Goduto said.
Detectives say Westbrook appears to have died from natural causes and had likely been there for about three months. But they noticed something else peculiar about the home: evidence that someone else may have been living there.
“It was ransacked. Drawers were overturned. His master bedroom was completely just disheveled,” Goduto said. “But then, there were items consistent with somebody still living there. The trash looked like it was taken out regularly. It looked like there was stuff in the garbage can that was fairly new.”
The day after the welfare check, police got a 911 call from a neighbor who knew Westbrook was dead but saw people on his property. When police arrived, they found four suspects with some of Westbrook’s property loaded into their vehicle.
“There was some speakers, some computer equipment. There was a bunch of mail,” Goduto said.
Goduto noticed Westbrook’s car, which had been parked in the driveway during the welfare check, was also gone. Police were able to track it to a nearby gas station, where they found three more suspects inside the vehicle.
“They had the victim’s credit cards. They had some checks from him,” Goduto said. “They had made purchases inside of the gas station. They were playing the lottery machines inside of the gas station with his money.”
According to incident reports, the seven suspects are facing a slew of charges, including burglary and fraud. They have been identified as Jarvis Darrell Ruff, Kristina Gale Coleman, Michael Richard Collins, Cherann Generra Cargle, Karla Sotoa Salazar, Sergio Gonzalez and Anthony Manzella.
Goduto says all seven suspects knew each other and some had criminal histories in Cobb County.
“It goes to show their moral compass, if you will,” Goduto said. “I mean, they broke into someone’s home. They saw him deceased on the ground and instead of saying, ‘Hey, we messed up. Let’s call 911. We found this guy dead,’ they decided to just live there.”
“I had no idea that this had been happening. I had no idea that he was dead. I had no idea that he was robbed,” neighbor Sophia Da Silva said. “It was quite shocking.”
The vegetation around Westbrook’s home is very overgrown, which is why police think the suspects may have targeted the property.
“I think they thought it was a vacant house,” Goduto said. “If you know you have an elderly neighbor, check on them. If you see their house is overgrown, check on them.”
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