A caregiver, hired to take care of an elderly woman, is now accused of hiding the woman's death, and then stealing more than half a million dollars from her bank account.
Monday, April 13, 2026 10:17PM
A caregiver, hired to take care of an elderly woman, is now accused of hiding the woman's death, and then stealing more than half a million dollars from her bank account.
Heather Carmichael, 48, is accused of stealing from 79-year-old Patricia Carberry.
'They isolate them to keep them away from other people, that they should only trust them that these are the only people who care about them,' Captain John Schmitt with the Montgomery County Sheriff's Office said. 'Which is why they're there with them all the time.'
Capt. Schmitt said the sheriff's office was first alerted to a possible problem when Carberry's sister called. She told investigators nobody had notified her that her sister had died, and when she got to her home a week after her death, she said the locks had been changed.
'She realized that Patricia's vehicle had been taken, she noticed some credit cards were missing and her cell phone,' Capt. Schmitt said. 'She later found that Heather had made arrangements to transfer Patricia's body to Port Arthur. She basically portrayed her to be Patricia's daughter and was able to take her there and had arrangements for her to be cremated.'
Businesses were closed and streets were difficult to get through.
'They discovered that Heather had basically withdrawn over $520,000 within a week after Patricia's death. That money transferred to her account,' Capt. Schmitt said.
ABC13 reached out to Carmichael on the phone, but she did not want to respond to any of our questions.
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