Hospice Nurse Caught Stealing $200K From the Veteran She Comforted in His Final Weeks

In the spring of 2024, Margaret Calloway — known to colleagues and patients as "Meg," an eleven-year palliative care nurse at a home-hospice agency in Ashford Bend — was arrested and charged with three counts including financial exploitation of a vulnerable adult, theft, and forgery after investigators discovered she had systematically drained more than $200,000 from the accounts of Earl Whitcomb, 81, a Korea-era Army veteran in her terminal care during the final months of his life. Calloway gained access to Whitcomb's finances by offering to help manage his mail as his health declined, eventually adding herself as an authorized user on a bank account during a supervised errand — a signature, investigators noted, that was dated one week after Whitcomb's own physician had charted him as too cognitively impaired to manage his financial affairs. Over approximately four months, Calloway executed a series of small, unremarkable transfers timed to coincide with the periods when Whitcomb was least lucid, ultimately moving his VA benefits and pension into accounts she controlled before his death. The investigation was triggered by Whitcomb's nephew, who discovered the depleted accounts while settling the estate. The smoking-gun exhibit recovered during the search was a single butterscotch candy wrapper tucked inside the same envelope as a $9,000 cashier's check made out to Calloway — filed in Whitcomb's own drawer. Earl Whitcomb died in the spring, still believing she was the best thing left in his life. - - Disclaimer: This video is a dramatization based on real events. Some visual content was created with artificial intelligence assistance. Some details have been fictionalized and all names have been changed to protect the privacy of those involved.