A woman has been accused of abusing a corpse after allegedly hiding her mother's rotting body at home and living with it for months while cashing in her social security benefits in the meantime.
Kimberly Heller, 54, from Bedford, New Hampshire, USA, was arrested and charged last month, according to cops in the United States.
Police said they were alerted to Heller's mum's disappearance after another family member raised concerns about not having seen her for several months, reports Insider.
Heller refused to allow police in when they first knocked on her door, but officers later returned with a search warrant, and that’s when they found the corpse of the older woman. Heller was arrested on November 18.
In a statement, the Bedford Police Department said: “Additionally, Bedford police have contacted the federal Social Security Administration Office of the Inspector General, and are co-ordinating with the Inspector General's investigation as the investigation indicated that Heller's mother's social security payments were still being deposited into her bank account in the months following her death.”
Police said their investigation had found that Heller's mother died in May. A coroner carried out an autopsy and ruled that she had died of natural causes.
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Heller is due in court early next year. It’s not been revealed publicly much more money she is alleged to have fraudulently claimed.
The case in Bedford, which is a suburb of the city of Manchester, is not the only recent case of its kind.
In September, a 66-year-old man in Austria admitted mummifying his mother's body using cat litter so he could keep cashing in her benefits.
Police said the preserved body of the 89-year-old woman was found in the cellar of her home near Innsbruck in the Tyrol region, where she had lived with her son.
It was thought she had died in June 2020 after suffering from dementia.
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