Tammy Crews Arrested After Allegedly Stealing Murdered Child’s Cash-Stuffed Donation Jar

Tammy Crews was arrested and booked into jail Saturday for the alleged theft of a cash-stuffed donation jar. NOLA reports that the proceeds were collected to help the family of 7-year-old Heidy Rivas Villanueva who died August 11 from a gunshot wound in a Westside shopping center parking lot in Jacksonville, Florida. A woman that looks very much like the 46-year-old Tammy Crews was captured on video Friday taking the donation jar at the Tapatio restaurant located close to where Rivas Villanueva was killed. The jar contained nearly $600 in funds collected for the murdered girl’s family

The Jacksonville sheriff’s office had asked for people’s help identifying the suspect after they reviewed the video footage. Fortunately, someone’s tip later led police to an identification, and a determined lieutenant then started looking for the woman. The JSO posted on their Facebook page that Tammy Crews was spotted walking Saturday on the 7500 block of 103rd Street, and that police officers approached her and started to interview her. During the discussion, Tammy Crews spontaneously blurted to officers on the scene that she was carrying a crack pipe, according to the post.

After the interview, Crews was taken into custody and booked under suspicion of grand theft and for the possession of drug paraphernalia. The JSO also wrote that during the interview that Tammy Crews admitted to them that she took the donation to use the cash “to support her crack cocaine addiction.”

https://www.facebook.com/JacksonvilleSheriffsOffice/photos/a.10151739509387896/10155894950192896/?type=3&theater

Below is the video posted on the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office’s Facebook page Friday that led to Tammy Crew’s quick arrest. The video shows a female looking around and then callously shoving the donation jar into a shopping bag. After doing so, she is seen in the footage quickly exiting out the door. The JSO thanked the public for their involvement, writing that it made a difference.

https://www.facebook.com/JacksonvilleSheriffsOffice/videos/534906830257035/

According to the Florida Times-Union, the JSO arrested three suspects in the murder of little Heidy Rivas Villanueva when she was slain in a crossfire at the Westside shopping center. The three suspects are Abrion Maurice Price, 21, Stanley Tyron Harris III, 19, and Trevonte Montie Phoenix, 17. Records show that all three remain in jail Saturday on suspicion of murder and other charges.

Luckily, the donation jar wasn’t the only source of charity proceeds collected for the slain 7-year-old, and a GoFundMe page #justiceforHeidy has been established in her name. Donations continue to be accepted on the page, and it was established to help the family with funeral expenses. The nearly $16,000 that has been collected so far will go toward helping the family bury Heidy Rivas Villanueva in Honduras, where the family comes from.