SALINE CO. – It’s beginning to appear as though an entire family has criminal inclinations that only the authorities can bring under control.
The arrest and charge against Lucretia R. Atkinson, 43, of Rosiclare, is what’s prompting the most recent opining of her family, among which are such south counties notables as Barbara Wingo and Terrie Eichorn (grandmother and aunt), the latter of which entered a plea in her major theft case at about the time Atkinson was being charged with hers.
Wingo and Eichorn are the two former co-directors of the Anna Bixby Women’s Center in Harrisburg, from which it’s alleged that they filched grant funds from the state in order to enrich themselves; Eichorn recently entered a plea in her case, and gave a promise to truthfully testify in her mother’s case come October.
Upon learning this latter fact, many who knew Barb and Terrie were hit with convulsive fits of laughter, as it’s highly unlikely that would happen.
The criminality that runs like a thread through the family and plenty of people who have aligned themselves with them has been on display in other Wingo/Eichorn family members (Wayne Eichorn, Terrie’s husband, is a problem drinker like his wife is, and just narrowly escaped being drawn into the Anna Bixby drama in 2014 through his use of an Anna Bixby vehicle; and Kyle Eichorn, Terrie and Wayne’s errant son who nearly killed himself in a dope-laden DUI crash in late 2014; and Wayne Eichorn has a daughter from another marriage who is a felon out of both Gallatin and White counties).
Now, as noted in a back page article in the August edition, Atkinson has taken the leap from petty crim in Williamson County to major crim in neighboring Saline…and all because, it’s alleged, she couldn’t keep her hands off money for just a few months.
Atkinson is charged with Theft Over $10,000; the charging documents show that between on or about December 5, 2016 and July 20, 2017, Atkinson is accused of taking $44,689.46 from her employer, Southern Truss Company, Inc.
Sources have declined to indicate how it was she was alleged to have managed to filch so much money during such a short period of time.
Whatever the case, the charge was filed July 26 after an investigation into the matter, and Atkinson was able to post cash bond of $2,500 in her home county of Hardin on that same day….meaning someone let her know that the warrant had been issued.
This isn’t Atkinson’s first roundup, however…she was busted in a very low-profile case in 2013 in Williamson County, as outlined in last month’s issue, wherein she stole from Dillard’s in Marion. She was charged with a Class 3 felony Retail Theft but almost two years later, she was placed in the “Offender Initiative Program” which enabled her to have the theft removed from her record as it regards employment once she successfully completed the terms of it. The program allowed the case against her to be dismissed on January 10 of this year.
However, court paperwork shows that her current alleged criminality overlapped…so whether Williamson might take action on that or not remains to be seen.
Atkinson was schedule to make a first appearance in Saline County on August 28 at 11 a.m.