Women Arrested After Cop Busts Baby Funeral Scam

Pair pulled in $700 in just a few hours
By Evann Gastaldo,  Newser Staff
Posted Jun 20, 2011 12:31 PM CDT
Women Arrested After Cop Busts Baby Funeral Scam
Fox News took this screengrab from a Fox 40 report on the incident.   (Fox 40 via Fox News)

Two women in Modesto allegedly came up with a decidedly heartless way to score some easy money: They solicited “funeral donations” for a six-month-old who supposedly died of a heart condition while they were on vacation, racking up $700 in just a few hours on Saturday. A police officer spotted Chasity Doll and Tiffany Lyon darting in and out of traffic to ask motorists for donations, and initially only asked them to stay on the sidewalk. But when he started asking basic questions they couldn’t answer, he got suspicious.

The women couldn’t tell him how exactly Justin Michael Farrell died or what hospital he died at, so the officer checked with the county coroner and found no record of a baby Farrell’s death. Turns out the women printed a baby photo off the Internet and allegedly pulled the scam twice, once on Friday at a different intersection. "They have tugged on the heartstrings of people and taken advantage of them and that's really what is difficult to understand," an officer tells Fox 40. The women were arrested. (More strange stuff stories.)

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