Woman who escaped custody found in elderly couple's home wearing the husband's pyjamas

A 72-year-old woman from Deltona, Florida, got quite a surprise on Sunday morning after she found a strange woman in her house wearing her husband's pyjamas. It wasn’t her husband’s secret lover, as it turned out. It was 22-year-old Eryn Rice, who decided to hole up in the house while hiding from deputies that she escaped from earlier that morning while being handcuffed for shoplifting, according to Gary Davidson of the Volusia County Sheriff’s Office. Rice took the opportunity to wash her clothes in the couple's washing machine, take a shower, and slip into a pair of flannel pyjamas, Davidson said.



Now, rather than just facing shoplifting charges, Rice faces a long list of criminal charges that include retail theft, resisting an officer with violence, battery on a law-enforcement officer, giving a false name, escape, burglary and petty theft, according to Davidson. Deputies also arrested an accomplice who was driving Rice’s getaway car, the Sheriff’s Office said. The entire incident began shortly before 6:30am when Rice was seen shoplifting several hundred dollars’ worth of cosmetics from a CVS Pharmacy, Davidson said. Before she exited the store, her accomplice, 25-year-old John Willey, realised deputies spotted him in his car and drove off, according to the Sheriff’s Office.

A deputy apprehended Rice as she left the store and got one handcuff on her left wrist, but she became combative, spun around, shoved the deputy to the ground, and took off running, according to the Sheriff’s Office report. Deputies first checked Willey’s house, but Rice wasn’t there. Later, just before 11:30am, the 72-year-old couple flagged down deputies and asked if they were looking for a woman. The couple explained that after the husband left to play golf that morning, the wife found a strange woman in the house wearing her husband’s pyjamas. She called her husband and demanded an explanation. When he came home, the husband insisted that he wasn’t having an affair with the intruder and had never seen her before.



The couple agreed to drive Rice to a residence less than a mile away, the Sheriff’s Office report said. Later, the couple found one of Rice’s socks and a pair of panties in their washing machine. Deputies returned to the home where she'd been dropped off in time to see Willey driving off, according to Davidson. Willey was trying to hide Rice, who was hiding on the floor of his vehicle, Davidson said. Both were arrested. In addition to the other charges, Rice was also arrested on a warrant out of Osceola County for a probation violation associated with a grand-theft charge. Willey was charged with being an accessory after-the-fact to robbery and harbouring an escaped prisoner. Deputies later found the discarded handcuffs that Rice managed to slip out of, not far from the CVS, the Sheriff’s Office said. Davidson said they also found two syringes on Rice and another one, which contained methamphetamine residue, in the car. Rice is in custody on $44,000 bail, while Willey is being held on $20,000 bail.