International student Jiao Shi Qi was twice robbed of her purse in the 15-and-a-half months she lived in Hamilton: on her first day in the city after arriving on an Air Canada flight from Beijing in May 2010; and on her last day, Sept. 18, as she lay dead in the middle of a downtown street, the victim of an alleged drunk driver who police say sped off after he killed her.

The driver was not hard to find. Hamilton cops picked him up hours after the alleged hit-and-run.

But the whereabouts of Jiao’s purse — swiped from the crime scene amid the 20-year-old woman’s dead body and bloody debris from the crash — and the person who used a credit card in Jiao’s wallet 13 hours after she died, were tougher to track down.

On Monday, nearly four months after the crash, police announced the arrest of 29-year-old Hamilton man Jason Dave Trotter. He is charged with four counts of credit card fraud, two counts of theft under $5,000 and related charges.

Trotter was arrested in his home last Tuesday, according to police, who refused to say how long he had been a suspect. The man is currently in hospital for treatment of an undisclosed illness he developed since his alleged crimes, police said.

It is unclear when he will next appear in court.

Jiao, known as Bonnie to her friends at Columbia International College, was from Jilin City in eastern China. She travelled more than 18,000 kilometres to Hamilton to study at the prestigious preparatory school, which draws students from all over the world. Jiao was three months away from graduating when she was killed. She had planned to study business at the University of Toronto.

Her parents travelled to Hamilton from China in September to attend a memorial and retrieve their only child’s remains.

Jiao’s friends said Monday they were happy to hear of the arrest, but still upset by the alleged theft and its gruesome nature.

“Why didn’t he help her?” said Jinnie Mok, 17, a fellow Columbia student and Chinese national who called Jiao her “first friend” in Hamilton. “I cannot understand how he can do that. It’s awful. It’s horrible.”

It is unclear where Jiao’s purse was in relation to her body. Glass was strewn 10 metres behind her.

Angelo Epifani, 61, of St. Catharines, is the driver accused of killing Jiao. He is charged with impaired driving causing death, operating a motor vehicle with more than 0.08 mg of alcohol and causing death, and failing to remain at the scene of a collision.