Price of Gold Fuels Thefts at Nursing Home

The lure of gold at Golden Living proved too much for one employee.

After a string of thefts at the Golden Living nursing home on Doylestown’s Maple Avenue, police arrested an employee they say stole from several residents. And one of the motivating factors behind the thefts, police say, is .

“The price of gold is so high, it’s worth stealing, to them, to get $50 or $60 for something they wouldn’t have bothered with a few years ago,” Doylestown Police Chief Jim Donnelly said recently.

Agnes Williams, 51, was arrested and charged with multiple counts of theft and receiving stolen property.

Police began investigating last spring when the nursing home reported the thefts of several pieces of jewelry.

Among the items reported missing were in March.

In April, include a gold ring, a gold chain with crucifix, a gold ring with blue and pink stones, a gold engagement ring, and two silver wedding bands, all valued at about $5,600.

In June, were reported missing.

Donnelly praised for reporting all the thefts.

“They’ve been very cooperative. All the nursing homes in town understand they have to report everything,” Donnelly said.

Tom Schultz, the administrator of Golden Living Center, Doylestown, said the nursing home reports thefts not just to the local police but also to the state.

“If someone reports something missing and indicates that they believe it’s been stolen, we report it to the Pennsylvania Department of Health, too,” Schultz said.

Schultz said the nursing home provides each of its roughly 100 residents with a drawer that locks.

“We remind them that we don’t encourage them to keep valuables out and about, we encourage them to lock them up,” he said.

Investigating the jewelry thefts proved somewhat easier than investigating smaller cash thefts, Donnelly said.

“If it’s a distinctive piece of jewelry, that’s one thing,” he said. “But if it’s a $20 missing from a wallet, it might be a clever employee, or it might be they didn’t know how much money they had in there to begin with.”

With beds for 120 residents, Golden Living used to be known as Doylestown Manor. Schultz said the nursing home employs more than 100 staff members.