On lookout for missing jewelry
Boston Globe, United States
By Steve Heyman, Globe Correspondent | July 30, 2006
Plainville police are urging residents to check for missing valuables after a local woman was convicted of stealing at least $50,000 worth of jewelry from homes in the town and nearby communities.
Millene Wilmarth, 30, admitted to lifting jewelry from at least four homes in Plainville and Foxborough, and possibly one in North Attleborough, to support a drug habit, police said.
Police said she capitalized on her jobs as a realtor and a home attendant to gain entry to residences. Wilmarth, who was arrested last fall, pleaded guilty to several larceny and drug charges and was sentenced July 19 in Wrentham District Court to three years’ probation.
According to Plainville Detective James Floyd, Wilmarth cannot recall how much jewelry she stole. Some of her loot was recovered in pawnshops in Rhode Island.
“There’s a good possibility that people may not realize that they are missing jewelry,” Floyd said. He said there are about 100 pieces, worth about $10,000, waiting to be claimed at the Plainville station. About 20 people have come in recent weeks to try to identify them, but only one person was successful, he said.
Francis Doran, a Natick lawyer who represented Wilmarth, said his client had returned or led police to nearly all the stolen jewelry. More “could be missing in the sense that she may have lost it, or it may have been pawned while she was under the influence of drugs,” Doran said. “But whatever she took, she’s given back to the police.”
Wilmarth had lived in Plainville, but has moved out of town, he said.
Floyd said Wilmarth, a former agent at Prudential Realty in Plainville, would often take jewelry while working with prospective buyers at an open house, or she would use another job as a home attendant, cooking and cleaning for elderly residents, to steal from her clients. The thefts took place over a period of at least two months before her arrest in September.
“The pieces she took were very distinctive, very identifiable,” Floyd said.
© Copyright 2006 Globe Newspaper Company.
