Daughter Pens Heart-Wrenching Letter to Thief Who Stole Dying Dad's iPhone

A nurse at Royal Oak Beaumont Hospital lay a new iPhone 6 on the pillow beside Jennifer Brady’s dying father’s head Saturday, patted him gently and left the room.

Life is draining from 61-year-old Charles Georg’s body and he doesn’t talk much, but Brady and other family members wanted the phone within his reach, in case he wanted to talk to his family a final time.

By morning, the phone was gone.

“How can you look at somebody that is so sick, has so little and decide what is theirs should be yours?” Brady said in an interview with WJBK-TV.

Georg has been receiving treatment for colon cancer and diabetes at Beaumont for the last several weeks. The phone was a lifeline to his family when they were unable to sit at his bedside.

Brady has been quick not to blame the nursing staff, who she said have been “so good and so kind.” On the other hand, “it didn’t walk off on its own,” she said.

And it didn’t disappear when the bedding was changed, as hospital officials said is sometimes the case. The phone been used since it was stolen, records show.

Brady said the hospital staff is investigating the theft of the $1,000 phone, and may discount her father’s hospital bill. But there’s no plan to replace it, she said.

“ ... Did you worry that he would wake up when you unplugged his phone? You shouldn’t have worried, he’s very ill now, his body is betraying him ... and he spends most of his time sleeping.”

Brady took her pain public in an open letter on Beaumont Health System’s Facebook page addressed to “the person that stole my dad’s iPhone”:

“Last night my dad’s nurse plugged in his new iPhone 6 and placed it on his pillow next to his head so that if we, his family, wanted to check up on him we could call and have there be some chance that he could hear it, probably not, but maybe. I watched her place it next to his head and pat his hand and tell him to get a good rest and then I went home too.

“I don’t know when you came into his room or why. You might have been a food service worker or a cleaner, I’ll never know. What I do know is that you are an evil person and I know that material things override your sense of compassion.

“You looked at a man that has so little left and is so weak and decided that what belonged to him should be yours.

“His phone was on his pillow, did you worry that he would wake up when you unplugged his phone? You shouldn’t have worried, he’s very ill now, his body is betraying him even though he still has the spirit of a fighter and he spends most of his time sleeping. He hasn’t been waking up when I spend time with him anymore and he doesn’t talk much, you would probably be relieved to know that.

“Do you think that his phone is cool? He did too. I can’t begin to explain how much he geeked out three weeks ago when he got his phone and could play with Siri. Yeah, only three weeks ago he was driving and talking and eating and working. Crazy how fast someone’s health can deteriorate, isn’t it?

“You must have seen that when you looked at him. The sunken in temples and cheekbones, the thin arms. Were his legs uncovered? Could you see the scabbing that diabetes has caused? Because I see it, I see it all. But what you can’t see is that my dad is so loved and this is so hard on his family. What you can’t see is the stress you’ve added to us when we are already struggling and watching a man we love so much fade from us.

“I hope you like his phone, I hope it makes you as happy as it made him, but mostly, I hope that if you ever end up in his shoes, no one would ever take advantage of you.”

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Photo: Beaumont Health System