BOUNTIFUL —A man who claimed a recent conversion to Christianity, allegedly stole a dying man’s morphine in order to “bless it,” last week.

Bountiful Police Lt. Randy Pickett said Ryan Bruse was arrested for burglary, possession of a controlled substance and assault after he allegedly told police he had squirted morphine belonging to 74-year-old Lamont Jenkins into his mouth, with the intent to squirt it out onto the bottle in the sign of a cross to bless it.

Jenkins, who died Sunday, had a prescription of morphine for his extreme pain, and a vial of it was on the nightstand when family and friends of Jenkins were visiting him on Friday.

Bruse, who lives next door, was among those who came to Jenkins’ house. Pickett said Bruse stayed near the nightstand for a while, then asked to use the bathroom. While he was still in the bathroom, a friend who is a nurse, noticed the morphine vial missing. The family confronted Bruse who claimed to not know anything.

Pickett said he then started to leave, but family and friends kept him there, and Bruse allegedly shoved a family member while trying to leave.

Those in the house found the vial in the trash can in the bathroom with about half of the liquid morphine missing, Pickett said.

When police officers separated Bruse from family members Pickett said he admitted he took it, but initially wouldn’t say where the syringe, needed to get the morphine out of the vial, was.

However Bruse, “kept fiddling with his shoe,” and the syringe fell out, still containing some of the liquid.

Bruse allegedly told officers he had been an atheist and had recently converted to Christianity. Police say he told them he had squirted some of the morphine into his mouth so that he could “squirt it out onto the bottle in the sign of a cross to bless it.”

Police took him to Lakeview Hospital where he was checked out and released. He was then booked into the Davis County Jail, but posted bail on Sunday, not long before Jenkins died.

The case is now being reviewed for charges by the Davis County Attorney’s Office.

Meanwhile funeral services for Jenkins will be held Saturday.

mwilliams@davisclipper.com