Trio charged with stealing IDs from dying

SLIDELL, La., March 24 (UPI) -- A mother and son have been charged with stealing the identities of dying patients at a Louisiana hospital.

Rebecca Stockdale of Slidell, who worked as an emergency room clerk at Slidell Memorial Hospital, allegedly called her son, Robert Ezell, on her cell phone, passing on information about patients. Ezell would apply for credit cards as soon as the patients died, the New Orleans Times-Picayune reported.

"This is about as low as you can stoop for a dollar," Sheriff Jack Strain said. "Imagine going through all of the emotions of losing a loved one, and then having to deal with calls from a collection agency because someone stole their identity after they died."

Ezell's wife, Charlotte Cooper-Ezell, has also been charged.

Strain said that investigators only realized how large the fraud was after the trio was arrested. He said that Ezell used houses that had been vacant since Hurricane Katrina as addresses for fraudulent credit cards and new cards kept arriving after the arrests.