October 21, 2011

A Nevada man will serve nearly six months in jail after pleading no contest to stealing $600 from a man who had just been killed in a two-vehicle crash in southwest Kansas.

The Dodge City Globe reports David Bilbrey’s attorney told a Ford County judge her client, a Vietnam veteran, suffers from severe post-traumatic stress syndrome.

Prosecutors say James Cox of Plains was carrying a large amount
of money when he was killed in a crash Sept. 11 on U.S. 54 near
Bucklin. Bilbrey’s attorney, Deanna Knapp, says her client drove up
to the scene, checked Cox’s pulse and then picked the money up off
the road and drove away.

Knapp says the crash triggered a flashback to the violence
Bilbrey had seen in Vietnam and he shut down.