Forsyth County authorities have arrested a Dawson County woman that allegedly used a deceased woman’s credit card which had mistakenly been mailed to her to make thousands of dollars in purchases.

According to a Forsyth County Sheriff’s Office incident report, an investigation into the alleged fraud began after a local man was contacted by Regions Bank in November and told that payments on his deceased mother’s credit card had been missed.

The man, who believed that he had closed the Regions account after his mother died in 2014, was told that the account had not been closed, only the card associated with his mother’s account had been canceled, and a new card had been mailed out to her former residence on Keith Bridge Road.

Between Oct. 28 and Nov. 18, 2019, 95 transactions worth $13,487.46 were allegedly made on the deceased woman’s account, the report said.

On Monday, sheriff’s office spokesman Cpl. Doug Rainwater said that Marilyn Elisabeth Heilig, 52, was identified as the individual living at the property where the deceased woman’s credit card was mailed, and through paper records and video evidence detectives with the sheriff’s office’s High Tech Crimes Unit secured warrants for her arrest.

Heilig was arrested at her Dawsonville residence on Friday, Dec. 20, and has been charged with 23 counts of identity fraud and fraudulent use of a transaction card.

She was booked into the Forsyth County Jail following her arrest and was released sometime later under a bond of $26,640.