Incredibly grim surveillance footage caught the moment a woman broke into a Las Vegas funeral home and stole a casket with a body inside.
Patricia Sierra, 47, was identified as the culprit several days after the August 27 incident. She told police she didn’t remember the burglary because she blacked out from drinking six beers, according to an arrest report obtained by KVVU-TV.
Cameras from inside the Affordable Cremation & Burial Service showed a person breaking the front window and unlocking the front door.
The person then walks into a viewing room and wheels a casket worth $2,600 out the same door she entered through, according to the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police.
At around 3:30am, someone saw the body that had been inside the casket lying face down and called the police.
Officers arrived on the scene and found both the casket and the body, which had its feet covered with plastic bags, USA Today reported.
One officer located paperwork next to the casket that identified the body. It also revealed that the viewing for the deceased had been on August 26, the day before the alleged drunken break in by Sierra.
Police observed the surveillance footage and saw the burglar making multiple trips in and out of the business before leaving.
A construction worker reportedly approached officers at the scene and told them he saw a woman holding flowers and leaning against one of the funeral home’s exterior walls on the day of the incident.
The picture became even clearer when officers got a call on August 29 from someone who said they saw a person at a 7-Eleven wearing the same clothes the suspect was seen wearing on the day of the burglary.
Police eventually located Sierra, who told them she often ‘blacks out’ and has a substance abuse problem.
Even though she claimed to not remember breaking into the funeral home, she was apologetic and said she wasn’t trying to be malicious.
She also admitted that she frequently burglarized businesses in the past and would ‘use a rock to break a window,’ according to the arrest report.
Police also discovered she got around on a red BMX bicycle, one that matched the one that appeared on the funeral home’s security cameras.
Sierra has been charged with burglary, grand larceny and disturbing human remains in connection with the incident on August 27.
Her bail was set at $11,000, and she has a preliminary hearing on September 18, per court records.