In a case that bears more than a passing resemblance to the plot of the 1989 film Weekend at Bernie’s, two Ohio women have been accused of driving a dead man’s body to a bank to withdraw money from his account.
Karen Casbohm, 63, and Loreen Bea Feralo, 55, were charged Tuesday in Ashtabula with, among other things, gross abuse of a corpse. Police said they received a call Monday that two anonymous women had dropped off a body at a hospital. Later one of the women contacted the hospital – the Ashtabula county medical centre – with information on the deceased, identified as Douglas Layman, 80, of Ashtabula.
Officers went to his house where they spoke to Casbohm and Feralo, who lived with him. They told police they had found him there dead earlier in the day.
Then, police allege, with the help of an unnamed person, they put Layman’s body in the front seat of his car and drove to a bank with a drive-through window, where they took out “an undisclosed amount of money” from his account.
Layman’s body “was placed in the vehicle in such a manner that he would be visible to bank staff in order to make the withdrawal”, the police chief, Robert Stell, said in a news release on Thursday. Stell said the bank “had allowed this previously as long as they were accompanied by him”.
One of the women had reportedly been in a relationship with Layman, while the other had only been staying with them for a few months. The women claimed they often took money from his account.
In the 1989 film Weekend at Bernie’s, two men attending a party at their boss’s house discover he had been killed by a double-crossing hitman. To avoid being falsely accused of the murder until they are able to leave, they attempt to persuade his oblivious guests that the corpse was still alive.
The coroner’s office said an autopsy to determine the cause of Layman’s death could take up to eight months.
The Associated Press contributed reporting
