A rural Bayard woman accused of embezzling more than $57,000 from an arm of the Twin Cities Development Corporation died yesterday, about a day after being arrested.

Scotts Bluff County Attorney Doug Warner says 55 year old Terri Sinks died yesterday morning after being taken by ambulance from her home to Regional West Medical Center in Scottsbluff. Sinks had been arrested Tuesday morning and released on bond Tuesday evening.

In Nebraska, county attorneys are also the county coroner…and it will be up to Morrill County Attorney Travis Rodak to decide if an autopsy is warranted and if so, when it will be done. Given the charges and the timing of the death, Rodak is expected to order an autopsy.

Sink was an administrative assistant at Twin Cities Development and the housing coordinator for Western Nebraska Housing Opportunities. Court documents show she was accussed of superimposing her name on 12 checks from a housing account betweenNovember of 2011 and last month.

According to the documents, TCD Executive Director Rawnda Pierce told Scottsbluff police earlier this month that she noticed the account was short on funds, with a review of its May 31st statement revealing a $2,775 check made out to Sinks and with Pierce’s signature forged.

Pierce told police she then confronted Sinks and immediately fired her when Sinks admitted to embezzling the money. Pierce says Sinks gave her a cashier’s check for that amount the next day, but that a review of earlier bank statements uncovered 11 more checks…at which point she contacted police.

Sinks was interviewed Tuesday morning by officers at the Scottsbluff police station and, after she declined to give them a statement, was arrested on 12 counts each of forgery and theft by deception. Warner says he planned to merge the charges into a single count of aggravated theft.