Woman Fakes Having Cancer - Again

[matcom]

:grr:

<snip>

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. --A woman sentenced earlier this year to probation for faking cancer and collecting money from fundraisers has been arrested for allegedly deceiving her employers with a similar scheme.

Brookelyn Walters, 26, faces a preliminary charge of theft after convincing the owners of a gymnastics business that she had leukemia, police said.

Mike and Erin Booher, owners of Bloomington's Rising Star Gymnastics, said they felt so moved by her story that Walters stayed in their home for a month so they could care for her.

"Our trust just sort of kept us going with her, and our pity, too," Erin Booher said.

While she was a student at Ball State, Walters shaved her head and pretended to be deaf for three years, leading Ball State officials to provide an interpreter for her to attend classes, authorities said. A sorority and fraternity also gave Walters $1,000 raised at a benefit.

A Delaware Circuit Court judge sentenced her in March to four years probation after she pleaded guilty but mentally ill to felony charges.

Walters moved to Bloomington earlier this year and had been working at Rising Star since February, using a fake name, police said. In April, Walters told the owners that she had been diagnosed with leukemia, a form of cancer.

The Boohers organized a fundraiser earlier this month at which they held a cartwheel-a-thon and raised about $4,000, police said.

The hoax ended Sunday after Walters was taken to Methodist Hospital in Indianapolis where she said she needed emergency brain surgery. Erin Booher and a friend said they asked to speak to a counselor.

When a doctor arrived, the pair told him about Walters' story and noticed that the doctor was smirking. The doctor told Booher and her friend that Walters said she was in remission from cancer and that she had received treatment in France.

The Boohers did Internet research and found Walters' former conviction in Muncie.

http://www.boston.com/news/odd/articles/2005/08/30/woman_allegedly_fakes_cancer_again?mode=PF