Deltona, FL – An elderly woman’s suspicion that her husband was cheating on her leads to 2 people booked on robbery charges at Volusia County Jail.
22-year-old Eryn Rice and 25-year-old John Willey were each arrested on Sunday after the woman found Rice in her Deltona home wearing her husband’s pajamas and sleeping in a guest bedroom, according to the Volusia County Sheriff’s Office.
VCSO spokesman Gary Davidson says Rice broke into the home to hide from deputies looking to arrest her for shoplifting at the CVS Pharmacy on Howland Boulevard.
“Rice washed her clothes in the washing machine, took a shower, slipped into some flannel pajamas belonging to the woman’s 72-year-old husband and then napped in the guest bedroom,” Davidson added. “She’s now facing 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 VCSO, Rice was at the pharmacy around 6:30 AM Sunday when she tried to walk out without paying for several hundred dollars in cosmetics.
“A deputy nabbed Rice as she left the CVS store and took her into custody,” Davidson stated. “As the deputy got one handcuff on Rice’s left wrist, the defendant became combative and spun around, violently shoved the deputy to the ground and then took off running.”
K-9 units and Air One joined the search effort for Rice, but it turned out to be the 72-year-old woman who gave VCSO the break they needed to catch Rice, per Davidson.
“Shortly before 11:30 AM, deputies were flagged down by [the] couple,” Davidson said. “After the husband left to play golf that morning, the wife found a strange woman in the house and she was wearing her husband’s clothes. So the wife 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 take Rice to Willey’s home on Fountain Road at her request and deputies soon took her and Willey into custody after he tried to drive away from his home with her hiding on the floorboard of the vehicle.
“In addition to the other charges, Rice also was arrested on a warrant out of Osceola County for a probation violation associated with a grand theft charge,” Davidson stated. “Willey was charged with being an accessory after the fact to robbery and harboring an escaped prisoner.”
Deputies think Willey was waiting in the CVS parking lot for Rice when she tried to shoplift the cosmetics but got spooked and left without her when he saw a VCSO squad car arrive.
The incident report shows deputies found the handcuffs Rice managed to slip out of abandoned at DuPont Lakes Park and 3 syringes with meth residue on Rice’s person and in the vehicle Willey was driving.
When questioned, Rice told the couple she sleepwalked into the home, per the report.
Rice and Willey are both are held without bond at VCJ as of Noon Monday.
VCJ records show Rice has been booked there 11 other times since May 2011 on a host of charges, including criminal mischief, domestic battery, drug paraphernalia possession, carrying a concealed weapon, petit theft, evidence tampering, drug possession, obstruction, grand theft and retail theft.
As for Willey, he’s been booked at VCJ in October 2014 and March 2015, both times for selling drugs.
Mugshots below are courtesy of VCJ.
Eryn Rice
John Willey
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