Woman Sentenced to Probation for Posing as Dead Son

A Fulton County woman had a pretty bizarre way of mourning over a deceased loved one.  Donna Ellis Gibbs was sentenced to 20 years of probation for a scheme which allowed her to collect an insurance payout of more than $151,000 after she posed as her dead son.

According to the Atlanta Journal Constitution, Gibbs’s son died in a car accident in December 2002 and two months later, Gibbs took out a policy with Monumental Life Insurance acting as her son and then later submitted altered documents including a police report and death certificate which stated her son died in April 2003.

Gibbs’s cover was eventually blown four years later when an investigation launched after Gibbs’s ex-husband discovered the plot and notified Monumental Life and submitted the correct documents reflecting their late son had passed in December of 2002.

Gibbs was sentenced to 20 years of probation which can be reduced after five years if she agrees to a plea deal.  She must also pay restitution for the payout she received and she must perform 200 hours of community service and comply to drug and alcohol treatment and testing. We’ve all heard that there are seven stages of grieving, but I’m pretty sure insurance fraud was one of them.