California man accused of stealing identity, money of dead roommate for four years after his death

A California man was charged this week with stealing the identity of a dead roommate with whose body he had lived for four years.

The Butte County superior court arraigned 57-year-old Darren Wade Pirtle, of Chico, on charges of identity theft and on multiple counts of forgery for writing checks from the account of Kevin Olson, 64.

The Butte County district attorney said that it’s believed Olson died sometime in late 2018.

His body was found in his bedroom when a search warrant was executed for the property under a missing-persons investigation that was opened in August.

The cause of his death has yet to be determined.

Mr. Pirtle has another appearance in court scheduled for Thursday, when he could enter a plea.

A relative of Olson’s told police that he hadn’t seen or heard from him since October 2018, according to the district attorney.

Whenever that relative and others tried to get in touch with Olson, the district attorney said that Mr. Pirtle “always gave various excuses” for why Olson wasn’t available.

Mr. Pirtle had also told police that Olson was “out of town” when they visited the home, the district attorney said.

While executing a search warrant into Olson’s bank account, police found that Olson, who was retired from the Navy, continued to receive retirement checks in the account and the money was used to pay his mortgage.

Mr. Pirtle had been paid 50 times by checks written from Olson’s account since July 2019 as well, which police determined were not written by Olson when they compared the signatures to past writings of his, according to the district attorney.

Mr. Pirtle had his bail set at $165,000 during his initial arraignment hearing earlier this week.