Lifestyle
Single Mom Catches Her Best Friend Stealing Her Money From Purse On Camera
“I didn’t think I would get caught.”
The last thing any struggling single mother need is to find that their best friend has been stealing their money. 27-year-old single mother Samantha Wood from Hedon, Hull, found out that her best friend, Melissa Collier, 28, has been stealing from her.
She figured out that she’s been stealing after she set up a hidden camera behind her toaster. The footage showed her ruffling through her purse and casually nabbing her money and stuffed it in her bra.
Samantha began suspecting her best friend after noticing money from her savings jar and son’s piggy bank have gone missing.
She installed a hidden device and caught her red-handed.
Collier stole money to do her nails and go out on weekends. She was not in a desperate need for money, but simply wanted more to be spent.
Collier has now admitted to the one theft she was caught on camera for at the hearing at Hull Magistrates Court. She recalls how heartbreaking the incident was, “That day she acted as nothing had happened. She told me she had made me a cup of tea like she had done me a favour, but she had just stolen from me.”
“I cried when I watched the footage, it was heartbreaking. This was my best friend who I was helping and she was stealing from me, it was such a difficult process,” she added.
“I’m a single mum and she knew I was struggling myself.”
“I loved her like a sister,” she lamented. “And she has not once cared about how her stealing from me was going to affect my ability to pay my bills or for my son Lucas.”
The two met when they were just 13 at South Holderness Technology College. Their friendship has lasted 15 years and Samantha did not choose to confront her but got a camera instead. She caught her red-handed stealing while she was boiling tea.
She began suspecting when her Christmas savings last year dwindled from £200 to £40. To make matters worse, Collier sent dozens of messages to Samantha, saying, “If I am being honest Sammy, I didn’t think I would get caught, I know that sounds awful and disgusting but I was being selfish and thinking of myself.”
She has pleaded guilty to one theft and five burglaries on November 11 and was back on December 10 for sentencing at Hull Crown Court.
