Caretaker accused of stealing from woman, 85

A West Delray caretaker swiped thousands of dollars of jewelry and cash while her client was hospitalized, according to a Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office arrest report.

Deputies arrested the aide, Marie Kernizan, 40, of Delray Beach on Thursday.

Kernizan’s 85-year-old client noticed a bag of cash and jewelry missing from her apartment after coming home from a stay in the hospital.

The client told deputies the theft happened sometime in April when she was in and out of the hospital for an illness. The items missing included a bank envelope with $600 inside and an additional $500 in the apartment, according to the report.

The client said she had used several aides.

Investigators questioned Kernizan, who said she had worked for the woman since February but had never seen the missing jewelry.

The case went inactive after detectives couldn’t find any fingerprints or other evidence, according to the report.

However, investigators later searched a pawn shop database and found that Kernizan had sold jewelry in February and May in Lake Worth.

A detective met with the 85-year-old woman and showed her a photo of the pawned jewelry.

“She immediately began crying and said ‘That’s my watch, my husband shoveled snow to get it!’ ” the detective wrote in the report.

The woman identified the other jewelry pawned by Kernizan in May as hers too, according to the report, leading deputies to call Kernizan in for more questioning.

Kernizan initially declined to talk without a lawyer, but when she was arrested Thursday she told an investigator that the woman gave her the ring, according to the report.

Kernizan was booked into Palm Beach County Jail and faces charges of exploitation of an elderly person, grand theft between $10,000 and $50,000, fraud and dealing in stolen property.

She was booked and released from jail after posting $31,000 bail.