Thieves steal from dead man in Ormond Beach

ORMOND BEACH, Fla. (WOFL FOX 35) - Crooks in Ormond Beach raided a dead person's home. Burglars getting their hands on just about everything they can. They left the place a mess, but there's stuff they didn't take, and other stuff they didn't get a chance to take.

William Sorley's house looked horrible after a robber's makeover. The late homeowner's sister, Barbara Houpt, says whoever broke looked everywhere for valuables.

“The police said all the pictures had been disturbed, they looked for stuff under the pictures and all that stuff,” Houpt said.

The burglars got into the house by cutting open this screen, making their way through the patio and pushing open one of the windows into the living room.

“They evidently had gone in and out the back of the house, because in talking to people on the cul-de-sac they live on, they hadn’t seen anything,” Houpt said.

A flat screen TV, boxes of cigarettes, and a jewelry box with a gift card inside were gone. But left behind were fine silverware, artwork, and a World War II Japanese officer's sword.

“And so the sword was on a side table and the police fingerprinted it,” Houpt said, “they said there were a lot of fingerprints on it, but they didn't take it.”

Luckily, Houpt had already gotten rid of the most dangerous stuff in the house: prescription medications and a weapon. “I think we were really lucky because I'd taken all of the bad stuff out of the house so that wasn't there and I'm sure worth a whole lot more than the television,” she said.

Houpt says she's happy the meds and gun aren't out on the streets. Deputies say the house did have an alarm system, but it wasn't turned on.