Video shows man stealing phone from woman dying on street

The woman was later pronounced dead of a heart attack.

Police in St Louis, Missouri, are looking for a man who captured on surveillance video stealing a cell phone from an elderly woman dying on the street.

The video shows the woman, who the St Louis Medical Examiner’s Office identified on Friday as Jacquelyn “Jackie” Olden, 64, collapsed on the sidewalk near the Anheuser-Busch Brewery in the Soulard neighborhood in mid-October. She is seen struggling to get up before falling, and then a man with a red Dodge Caravan walks by and steals her phone before driving away.

Ms Olden was eventually rushed to a hospital, where she was pronounced dead, having suffered a heart attack.

“For seven years, her bright smile and positive spirit were an encouragement to all,” the Rossman School, a private school where she worked as a kitchen assistant before recently retiring, wrote on Facebook. 

Community members expressed horror at what happened.

“There’s a lot of people out there that just take advantage of the people that are down, so it’s sad,” Mike Heath, who lives in the neighborhood, told KSDK. 

“You would think somebody would actually stop. Why would someone stop and steal her cellphone? It’s kind of desperate. It’s just sad to hear that that’s what people are doing out there. They’re not helping somebody out; rather, just rob them while they’re down."