One woman out of Florida forced herself to live with the dead body of her 93-year-old mother for over two weeks before buying a freezer to hide her in, all in an effort to ensure that she was able to keep getting the disability checks from her deceased mother, explained police.
This past Thursday, 64-year-old Michelle Hoskins was arrested and slammed with a charge of failing to report a death in the wake of admitting to finding her dead mother in bed and allegedly buying a deep freezer in an attempt to hide the body, explains a report from TCPalm.
“(Michelle Hoskins) found her mother deceased in her bed and decided not to contact authorities so that she could continue to receive Social Security disability benefits that she would not be afforded if it was known that her mother was deceased,” explained Detective Kenneth McDonough.
Police officials carried out a welfare check at the Hoskins residence on the 27th of April in the wake of getting multiple calls from “concerned neighbors.” When police questioned Hoskins, she stated that Marie was out seeing a doctor, but that she could not explain how her mother had gotten to the appointment.
The police then obtained a warrant to search the premises the very next day, and as part of the search discovered the horrible reality.
“On April 28, 2022, officers located 93-year-old, Marie Hoskins, deceased inside a chest freezer after a welfare check at 107 Paddock Street, Sebastian Florida,” Sebastian Police stated via a post on Facebook.
Police then requested that Hoskins come to the station for a few questions without actually telling her they had found the deceased remains of her mother. Hoskins first told investigators that she had not seen her mother since the evening of April 27th, which was the day the police carried out their welfare check and claimed she might be at another doctor’s appointment. She finally cracked a bit and stated that she had discovered her mother dead in bed, but was unable to remember the exact day on which she found her.
Detectives then found that Hoskins bought the freezer on the 21st of April, and she stated that “it took (her) three to five days to get her mother’s body to the freezer in the garage.” Hoskins also attempted to hide the “heavily soiled mattress” out in the “thick brush and covered by cut palm tree branches in the backyard,” reported police officials.
Reportedly, the medical examiner did not suspect any sort of foul play, stating that Marie died due to heart failure.
Hoskins went before a judge this past Friday and is currently detained in the Indian River County Jail with a $10,000 bond.