TMP Reports
Posted: Thursday, March 19, 2009 1:26 pm

Don C. Collins

A smooth-talking con artist who bilked an 88-year-old Murfreesboro woman out of $4,000 and left her weeping in a bank parking lot March 9 was captured Wednesday in Illinois.

Media exposure and witnesses last week led sheriff’s Detective Steve Kohler to the identity of the suspect, Don Collins, 32, of 475 Taurus Farm Roads in Lafayette, reported sheriff’s spokesman Sgt. Dan Goodwin.

Sheriff’s deputy Brad Lynn reported the 88-year-old Rutherford County woman lost $4,000 to a man who took her to her bank, withdrew the cash and abandoned her March 9.

The man who identified himself as Don Collins gave her a sad story and seemed nice to her, Lynn reported. He offered to do work in the woman’s yard for $4,000.

“Don did a little work, then asked if they could go to the bank and get some money,” Lynn reported.

She rode in a black truck with Don and his brother to the Bank of America on Memorial Boulevard to get the money. She had two checks she wrote to Don Collins but the bank refused and gave them back.

The woman doesn’t know how it happened but Collins received $4,000 in $20 bills, the deputy reported. After he received the money, he left her at the bank without a ride. Another customer at the bank gave her a ride home where she called the sheriff’s office.

Collins had already fled Tennessee, but the truck used in the scam was at the Lafayette home and Kohler seized it for its use in a felony, Goodwin said.

A nationwide be on the lookout alert was broadcast for Collins, and yesterday police in Woodford, Ill., caught him as he left a location they had under surveillance.

Collins produced a fake Kentucky identification card and lied about his name and he now faces charges for that in Illinois.

A hold for felony theft $1,000-$10,000, was placed on Collins. He also faces felony charges from the state of Alabama.

At this time of year hordes of “Irish Travelers” “English Travelers” or “Gypsies” bilk older Americans out of untold amounts of money in schemes like this.

Elderly victims are usually too embarrassed to tell relatives, let alone authorities when this occurred.

“We urge people to inform and warn their elderly relatives and friends about door-to-door home repairs by scam artists,” Goodwin said.