A suspected thief has been caught on CCTV stealing a wedding ring from a corpse in a Texas funeral home. Surveillance cameras at Sunset Funeral Home in Odessa caught an unidentified person slip the ring from the finger of 88-year-old Lois Hicks on 8 April.

Hicks granddaughter Brooke Vaughan Burns filmed the CCTV footage on her phone, and uploaded it to Facebook, where it has now been viewed over 193,000 times. It has also been picked up by a number of Texas television stations.

Burns wrote on the social media site: As if my grandmother passing away hasnt been hard enough on my entire family now some low life thief went into the funeral home yesterday around 5:40pm and stole the ring off her finger.

Lois Hicks had died the previous day. According to an interview with her daughter Vel McKee on Odessa America Online, a portion of her skin was ripped off with the ring.

The unidentified suspect walked into the funeral home and asked to use the bathroom, but instead walked into the room where the corpse was being held. Further CCTV footage did manage to capture the number plate on the vehicle the suspect used to get away.

The family had left Hicks ring on her, as a tribute to her husband Gayle who had died three years earlier. McKee and her sister Brenda Vaughan noticed it was gone when they were applying make-up to their grandmothers body.