OKLAHOMA CITY - A man is facing charges after allegedly stealing a treasured ring off a dying woman's finger. Her daughter says her mother knew it was going to happen.
Marvin James Johnson Jr. is now charged with financial exploitation of an elderly person/disabled adult by a caretaker, and false declaration of an ownership to a pawnbroker.
Devoted mother Carlus Gray thought she had a long-time battle with cancer beat, but over the summer, it returned aggressively.
"That's when my mama really just accepted it and then she began to decline," Carlus' daughter, Marquesha Gray, told KFOR.
Marquesha moved Carlus in with her.
In her final days, Carlus had enough energy for one last barbecue. But while they were together, Carlus had an unusual outburst. She accused someone who wasn't there of taking the ring that she still wore on her finger.
"We're telling her, 'No, mama, the ring is right here.' And she said, 'No, that black man took my ring and he went to that pawn shop,'" Marquesha said.
They chalked it up to delusions caused by medication.
But the next day while Marquesha was out of the house, the ring disappeared.
"'You tell me, who took your ring,'" Marquesha asked her. "And she said, 'The black man. He went to the pawn shop.'"
Marquesha discovered family acquaintance Marvin James Johnson Jr. had been invited to the house to help out.
"She said, 'I guess when I had my back turned when he was lifting her out of the bed, that's the only opportunity to slide the ring off her finger,'" Marquesha said, talking to another family member.
Incensed, Marquesha confronted Johnson at his home.
He denied it, but she found the receipt from the pawn shop sitting out in his home. She took the receipt and was able to confirm at the pawn shop that was the ring that had belonged to her mother.
"You don't think that someone's going to come into your home and take from someone who's not able to defend themselves," she said.
She said the receipt revealed he made $400 off the ring.
"[My mother] told me, 'I'm learning, daughter, on this journey that I'm on, people will take from you even when you're on your resting bed, and you must forgive them,'" Marquesha said. "'But I know that you're going to get it back, and I'm not worried about it because it's in God's hands.'"
Marquesha found the ring at the pawn shop just before her mother died.
"She smiled, she said, 'I know my children are not going to let me down,'" Marquesha said. "'You all love me.'"
