Dead men tell no tales

But that apparently doesn't stop them from depositing checks:

A Pittsburgh-area man collected more than $341,000 in federal railroad pension benefits on behalf of his father, even though his father died in 1985. Sixty-eight-year-old Richard Burns, of West Mifflin, will be sentenced Jan. 21 after pleading guilty Tuesday to theft of government funds.

Burns' father was collecting U.S. Railroad Retirement Board benefits when he died 25 years ago. Federal prosecutors said Burns continued to have the money deposited into a joint bank account he had with his father, because the federal pension board was never notified of the father's death.

Wait, you mean to tell me that an agency of the federal government was a little sloppy with hundreds of thousands of dollars? The hell, you say!

I know there are plenty of shut-ins around the country, but did no one from the pension board or the bank where the money was being deposited notice that they hadn't seen or heard from the guy in two and a half decades? You'd think that might raise a couple of red flags.