A Mingo County woman pleaded guilty to stealing $181,000 in military death benefits. Jessica Horton accepted U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs survivor’s benefits meant for her great aunt, who was awarded benefits in 1945 after the death of her husband in World War II. Beginning about 1964, the benefits were mailed to the woman’s post office box in Matewan that Horton’s mother had access to. Prosecutors said from the time of her great aunt’s death in 1999, Horton and her mother fraudulently signed her great aunt’s name on the benefits so that her mother could receive and convert them for her own use. Following the death of her mother in 2011, prosecutors said Horton took over the post office box and began signing her great aunt’s name on the payments for herself. The monthly benefits were terminated by the VA in January 2023. Horton is scheduled to be sentenced in September.