A health care worker has been sentenced in the theft of pain medication from a patient at an assisted living facility.
Emily Kristyn Shearer, 29, of Weirsdale, had been working in June at the Willows at Wildwood when she stole Hydrocodone and Oxycodone pills.
An employee looking for a cigarette lighter spotted a large number of pills in Shearer’s purse. The employee reported what she had seen to the charge nurse.
The charge nurse told police the pills were identical to ones taken from a patient two weeks earlier.
When an officer interviewed Shearer, she admitted she had taken a pouch containing the pills from her purse, put it in a trash bag and took it to the dumpster, according to an arrest report from the Wildwood Police Department. She said she was “scared” when she saw that law enforcement had arrived at the facility.
The officer accompanied Shearer to the dumpster, where she retrieved the bag and the pouch.
“The suspect stated that her mother gave her the Hydrocodone pills and that the Oxycodone pills were hers but that she didn’t have the prescription bottle,” the officer wrote in the report.
Shearer said she had been taking the pills for “a couple a days because her shoulder, back and ankle hurt due to long work hours.”
Last week in Sumter County Court, Shearer pleaded no contest in the case. She has been placed on probation for three years and ordered to perform 50 hours of community service.
