Police: Ashtabula women claim they brought dead roommate to bank to get cash

Early this month, two Ashtabula women took their 80-year-old male roommate for a trip to the bank for one last time. It’s too bad that the man was already dead when the women tried to make a withdrawal from his account.

According to a news release from the Ashtabula Police Department, shortly after 4 p.m. on March 4, officers responded to a call from the Ashtabula County Medical Center of a deceased man who was dropped off by two unidentified females.

The women left without providing information about the man or themselves, the release stated. A few hours later, one of the women called the hospital to inform medical personnel the man was Douglas Layman, age 80.

Officers responded to Layman’s home to find the two women, identified as Loreen B. Feralo and Karen Cashohm.

The women then told their story to officers about finding Layman dead inside the home and then placed Layman in the front passenger seat of his car and drove him to the bank. They had help from an unidentified third person.

An undisclosed amount of money was taken from the bank.

They told officers the dead man was placed in the vehicle this way so he would be visible to bank tellers.

What are the charges?

According to police Chief Robert D. Stell, both Loreen B. Feralo, 55, and Karen Casbohm, 67, have been charged with gross abuse of a corpse and theft from a person in a protected class.

Feralo, who has other pending charges in Ashtabula Municipal Court, waived her right to a preliminary hearing appear before Judge Laura Digiacomo, as did Casbohm on March 12.

Judge Digiacomo bound the cases over to a Columbiana County grand jury who will consider whether to indict the case to a higher court.

Meanwhile, both women, who were found indigent and given public defenders, are free after posting bonds, court records show.