Two Teens Found a Dead Body in a Ditch, but Before Getting Help, They Robbed It
Published May 13 2021, 4:38 p.m. ET
Content warning: This article discusses a disturbing video involving a dead body.
Human beings have always participated in some grisly, inhumane, and downright ugly practices. In modern society, however, we've become more and more privy to this bad behavior because so many people have video cameras and can either live stream or upload footage of their disturbing actions to the internet.
One example of this is a new Snapchat video of a girl stealing a necklace that's been making headlines all over the web.
Why is everyone getting so up in arms about a Snapchat video of a girl stealing a necklace?
It's not like it's that big of a deal, right? Some teenager stole a necklace. Petty theft happens all of the time. So what's a stolen necklace really mean in the grand scheme of things?
Well, the problem is that the thieves were 16 and 17 years old and that they stole the necklace off of a dead body that they found near a drainage pipe. There's also the fact that they recorded themselves doing the morbid act while having a grand old time and showed it off on Snapchat.
Bethany Martin and her friend came upon a corpse in Bexar County, Tex.
People reports that the girls said they were walking around a new neighborhood in the county when they noticed something amiss. "[They saw] something awkward by the drainage ditch and went to take a closer look," authorities said.
It was the dead body of 25-year-old Marcus Adams, who appeared to have taken his own life.
The two teens phoned a fellow male friend who came to see the body with them before they called the police to report what they found. The sheriff's office thanked the youngsters for making the phone call, but then, the following day, word got out about the video.
County Sheriff Javier Salazar said, "If it weren't on video? I wouldn't have believed that it happened." In the clip, Martin and her friend can be seen removing jewelry from the deceased individual, whose family has set up a GoFundMe to help cover the cost of his funeral.
If you think that robbing a dead person is disgusting, but altogether a victimless crime, you're sorely mistaken.
Martin was arrested for felony theft from a human corpse or grave and was tried as an adult. She was released on $2,000 bail. Her 16-year-old friend was slapped with the same charges from the court, but she's considered a juvenile.
"It was disturbing because they're laughing. 'I can't believe you're doing this,' or words to that effect, treating it as a joke," Salazar said.
Local news outlet KENS-5, per People, says that according to a police affidavit, the girls decided to rob the dead body of the necklace because it "matched" the 16-year-old's "fashion style." The report also states that the younger teen used Martin's phone to record the crime and that Martin indicated she carefully removed the necklace so as not to touch Adams' body.
Adams' father was horrified by the clip, "It's bad enough to steal from the living. But to steal from the dead? He's helpless. He's no longer here. He couldn't fight back."
"When my homicide sergeant pulled me aside and said, 'I'm going to show you video that's going to be very, very disturbing. And he showed me the video and it was, I'm, I'm shook! I am still shook. I'm disturbed by it," Salazar told local news outlet KSAT-12.
The girls said that they threw the chain in the grass nearby but the 16-year-old kept the pendant and attached it to her own necklace. After being presented with the video they took, she then gave the jewelry back and it was returned to the deceased's family.
