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School tax collector tried to kill herself after $323K went missing from Texas district, authorities say

Judith Ann Heaston, 63, was arrested Tuesday on suspicion of theft over $300,000, a first-degree felony, according to the Times Record News in Wichita Falls. She was released on $75,000 bail.

A school tax collector tried to kill herself a day after hundreds of thousands of dollars turned up missing in an audit of the district's finances this month, authorities say.

Judith Ann Heaston, 63, was arrested Tuesday on suspicion of theft over $300,000, a first-degree felony, according to the Times Record News in Wichita Falls. She was released on $75,000 bail.

The audit at City View ISD was finished Feb. 5, after which the district's superintendent confronted Heaston, who worked in the district's tax office.

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She couldn't account for the nearly $325,000 missing from the district's coffers and was fired that day. The money had allegedly been embezzled starting as early as 2002.

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A day after Heaston was fired, Superintendent Tony Bushong contacted authorities when he received a series of alarming text messages from the woman.

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"I hope you can eventually forgive me," one message read, according to an arrest-warrant affidavit obtained by the Times Record News. "I can't forgive myself, so I am leaving this earth to save the school and my family the embarrassment and humiliation."

Deputies rushed to Heaston's home and pulled her from a car that was idling in a locked garage on the property. She was taken to a hospital and treated for carbon-monoxide poisoning.

Questioned at the hospital, she told authorities the money was gone — all $323,382.51 of it.