When I was reading this, I thought "i'll bet that's not so unusual" and then I saw Deirdyweirdys comment.
Freshly dead, in a car, and having done it before, it would work, so it's not surprising that they tried it. I might try it too, if his money would go into the ether, no one would get hurt. Their mistake, yes, was to not go back home, they must have been freaked out. I doubt there would have been much of an inquest. What is curious to me is what they were charged with - nothing about robbing a dead man?
They were charged with abuse of a corpse or something like that. I don't think that any sort of fraud charges were brought against them.
I agree, if they had just gone home everything would have been fine and I would support them not allowing the state to take ownership of whatever pittance of money was in the man's account anyway.