A woman in Austria died in June 2020, yet her benefit checks kept getting cashed. Police came to discover the woman’s son had mummified her body and kept her remains in the basement for more than a year.
Neither the woman’s, nor the man’s, names were released.
The woman, who was 89 when she died, had dementia and died of natural causes, police in the Tyrol region said, according to BBC News.
They said the woman’s 66-year-old son moved her body to their home’s cellar and used ice packs and bandages to cover up the smell.
Police told Austria’s public news agency ORF that he also used cat litter, mummifying the body.
The authorities said he confessed, saying that he had no other source of money and that if he had reported his mother’s death, her pension payments would have stopped immediately. That would have left him with no money to pay for her funeral or be able to stay in their home.
In all, police said he collected about 50,000 euros or about $59,000 over the past year, BBC News reported.
He also told police that he had planned on reporting his mother’s death but kept putting it off, ORF reported.
Police said the man told his brother that the woman had been sent to a hospital. He didn’t go to check on her because of her condition, saying it wasn’t worth visiting her.
The woman also apparently had no friends who worried about her, ORF reported.
The woman’s remains were discovered after a postal worker new to the route asked to see the woman, but the son refused, so the money was returned to the payout office, ORF reported.
The son who kept her death a secret is accused of benefit fraud and hiding a corpse, Sky News reported.
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