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Another link in a chain of loss

Maybe it's just a stolen wallet, but life has already dealt Debbie Hall hardships. Besides, she needed that money.

By ASHLEE CLARK
Published August 11, 2006

LARGO - Whoever stole Debbie Hall's wallet this week almost certainly didn't know how hard the rest of her month would be without the $160 inside.

The thief probably couldn't have guessed that Hall has already lost a lot in her 49 years - two marriages, a son and a brother, her home and the use of her right arm.

And Hall knows that the Nine West wallet, along with credit cards, personal items and the $160 she needed for the rest of August, is likely gone forever.

"I hope that when he uses the money, he'll regret it," she said of the thief who took the wallet from her car as she walked her dog in Taylor Park on Monday.

The missing wallet is just the latest in a series of losses that began with a stroke Hall suffered 23 years ago. Her right arm rests lifeless at her side, and she walks with a pronounced limp.

She receives $1,200 a month for alimony, and because her alimony is more than $700 a month, she doesn't qualify for Supplemental Security Income disability benefits.

Her developmentally disabled brother, Kenny Munyan, died in 2000 after Hall and her then-husband cared for him for 10 years. Her son, David Hedge, died in 2004 at the age of 23.

After Hall and her second husband divorced, she moved to Largo from Georgia in January without many options. She lives with her brother's mother-in-law and spends many days at her daughter's apartment in Belleair Place.

On Monday, Hall and her yellow Labrador retriever, Bryce, got to Taylor Park at about 11 a.m. She left her purse on the passenger's seat of the 2000 Ford Taurus her brother gave her. She said she pressed the lock key twice, something she always does to ensure that the car is locked. Fifteen minutes later, the wallet was gone.

"I could've used that $160 for gas, for a little bit of food," Hall said.

Car burglaries seem to be on the rise in Largo, said police Sgt. Edward Sohoski. Many have been crimes of opportunity in which people leave their car unlocked or windows down with valuables inside.

The money is usually always gone in cases like these, he said.

But Hall lost something more valuable than the cash.

A letter that Hall wrote to her late mother, Shirley Munyan, was tucked away in the wallet.

Hall wrote the letter when she was 13 or 14, an apology note after a fight the two had.

"Dear Mom, I'm very sorry that I caused you grief," it read. "I won't do it again. I love you very much."

Munyan kept the note in her own wallet for years. When she passed away in 1990, Hall did the same thing.

"It's torn, but it doesn't matter," Hall said. "But she cared enough to read it and keep it."

But now the note is gone.

"I wonder, what more, what more?" Hall said. "But I have faith and belief that God's with me and he won't let me down."

[Last modified August 10, 2006, 22:36:22]