SEBASTIAN, Fla. — A Florida woman was charged with failing to report her mother’s death more than two months after the woman’s body was found in a freezer in the home they shared.
The woman, 64, was arrested Thursday and also charged with tampering with evidence. Her 93-year-old mother’s body was found after a welfare check was conducted in late April, according to the Sebastian Police Department’s Facebook page. The daughter told investigators she bought the deep freezer and put her mother’s body in it so she could keep receiving her disability payments.
The department said an investigation showed the woman died of natural causes and that she was dead for two weeks before her body was put in the freezer. Investigators searching the property found a heavily stained mattress hidden in thick brush and covered with cut palm leaves, police said.
The woman was being held in the Indian River County jail on $10,000 bond. Online jail records didn’t list a lawyer for her.