CLARENDON, Texas — A Hereford man who worked for a company cleaning up after last week’s head-on train crash was arrested on June 5 and charged with stealing the wallet of the locomotive engineer who was killed in the wreck, the Amarillo Globe-News reports.
Donley County Sheriff Butch Blackburn said the crime allegedly committed by Antonio Valle Jr. is one of the more revolting he has seen.
“I thought he was the biggest lowlife that ever went through Clarendon,” Blackburn said.
Blackburn said Valle was working with a cleanup crew at the site of the May 28 train wreck three miles west of Clarendon where two Burlington Northern Santa Fe trains collided, killing Galen Shelby of Lubbock and injuring three others.
During the recovery operation, two Clarendon firefighters observed a man pick up a wallet belonging to Shelby, then reported what they saw to an agent from the railroad, Blackburn said.
The agent watched the suspect for about 30 minutes to make sure the suspect wasn’t planning on turning in the wallet he had pocketed, then the agent recovered the wallet, Blackburn said.
Valle was arrested Wednesday in Hereford and is free on bond. He was charged with a Class A misdemeanor theft charge, which carries a maximum sentence of one year in jail and a fine of up to $4,000.
“It’s not really a harsh enough sentence for this low of a crime, but that’s what the law says,” Blackburn said.