Fifty years after Dorothy Tarpin bought her home in Parkland, it was taken over in June using a quitclaim deed—a method usually used for property transfers between people who know each other well or are related.
“I called my niece and told her I dreamed it,” Tarpin told WHAS11. “And she said, ‘Oh yes, somebody did steal your house, Aunt Dorothy.'”
Her great-niece, Ashley Mack, filmed a confrontation with two men removing furniture from the house.
“Do y’all know you’re stealing this house from an old lady?” Ashley said in the video.
The men told her the homeowner was dead.
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“Ashley told him, ‘Aunt Dorothy ain’t dead!'” Tarpin said.
LMPD has confirmed an investigation into suspected fraud. The backyard still contains shattered furniture, along with “For Sale” and “No Trespassing” signs, the latter of which the family claims was placed by the trespassers.
The Property Value Administrator removed the trespassers’ names from the deed after discovering the error.
Tina Mack and Alpha Johnson, her nieces, have sweet memories of the home. Alpha Johnson shared, “Everything was beautiful. For someone to do that to her is really disgusting.”
Tina Mack added, “And the hardest part about it is it’s real easy for him to take her home, with fraudulent documents, but we have to a civil suit to get it back.”
Ashley Tinius, a spokeswoman for the Jefferson County Clerk, mentioned that these kinds of fraudulent takeovers are pretty rare, considering the thousands of deeds filed every week with the Jefferson County Clerk.
“Maybe once every three years we see a case of it,” she said. “There is no way for us to spot a fake notary on there, or to catch something like. So we created that Clerk Alert.”
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One can sign up on the Clerk’s website using their email for notifications, including on quitclaim deeds.
“The next step is getting him arrested and figuring out if there’s anybody else involved with this scheme,” Tina Mack said of the trespassers last week.
The Clerk’s office stated that within the next two years, an AI tool will review these deeds and analyze them for potential fraud.
Meanwhile, individuals may register on the Clerk’s website to receive email updates, which will include information concerning quitclaim deeds.
On Friday, WDRB reported that the trespasser, called Russell Cheatham, turned himself in to police and is charged with identity theft.
Tarpin didn’t just lose her home but her belongings too.
“I had seven diamond rings in that house,” Tarpin said. Her family plans to file a civil suit against Cheatham for everything that was taken.
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