FOR 15 years, Harriett Miller of Georgetown, S.C., received widow's benefits from the West Virginia Workers' Compensation Commission earned by a man who was killed seven years before she was born.

From 1987 through 2002, Miller received $116,000 in the name of Clyde Allen's widow, Hazel.

Allen was a coal miner who died in a mine roof collapse in 1941.

Miller was a neighbor of his widow, who had moved to South Carolina. She died in 1987.

Instead of informing authorities of the widow's death, Miller began cashing Hazel Allen's monthly checks, and did so for another 15 years, Kanawha County assistant prosecutor Rob Schulenberg said.

She filed change-of-address forms with the agency. "And if a check didn't arrive, she {Miller} even called to complain," Schulenberg said. "She said she was Hazel Allen."

Miller and her estranged husband, Kevin R. Sexton, pleaded guilty on Tuesday to felony charges of fraudulent schemes. The case was before Kanawha Circuit Judge James Stuckey.

"When I heard they were going to investigate, I thought, 'Good. It's over," she told the judge. She went on to say, "It was a time when I needed financial help and couldn't get it."

But at 60, she collects Social Security Disability for breathing problems and anxiety attacks. Sexton, too, receives such checks for mental and physical disabilities, he told the judge.

Yet these two leeches were stealing money earned by a man who died honorably while mining coal 67 years ago.

Here's to the investigators who uncovered the fraud and brought it to court. That kind of thing shouldn't happen.

FOR 15 years, Harriett Miller of Georgetown, S.C., received widow's benefits from the West Virginia Workers' Compensation Commission earned by a man who was killed seven years before she was born.

From 1987 through 2002, Miller received $116,000 in the name of Clyde Allen's widow, Hazel.

Allen was a coal miner who died in a mine roof collapse in 1941.

Miller was a neighbor of his widow, who had moved to South Carolina. She died in 1987.

Instead of informing authorities of the widow's death, Miller began cashing Hazel Allen's monthly checks, and did so for another 15 years, Kanawha County assistant prosecutor Rob Schulenberg said.

She filed change-of-address forms with the agency. "And if a check didn't arrive, she {Miller} even called to complain," Schulenberg said. "She said she was Hazel Allen."

Miller and her estranged husband, Kevin R. Sexton, pleaded guilty on Tuesday to felony charges of fraudulent schemes. The case was before Kanawha Circuit Judge James Stuckey.

"When I heard they were going to investigate, I thought, 'Good. It's over," she told the judge. She went on to say, "It was a time when I needed financial help and couldn't get it."

But at 60, she collects Social Security Disability for breathing problems and anxiety attacks. Sexton, too, receives such checks for mental and physical disabilities, he told the judge.

Yet these two leeches were stealing money earned by a man who died honorably while mining coal 67 years ago.

Here's to the investigators who uncovered the fraud and brought it to court. That kind of thing shouldn't happen.