A Utah man whose body is believed to have been frozen for the past 10 years left behind a notarized letter denying that his wife killed him.
The chilling discovery was made last month when authorities in the town of Tooele were called to initiate a welfare check on 75-year-old Jeanne Souron-Mathers. After finding the woman dead inside the apartment, they began searching and found the frozen body of 69-year-old Paul Mathers, her husband.
In addition to the corpse, which is believed to have been placed in the freezer sometime in the spring of 2009, police also found a letter.
“It was notarized on December 2, 2008,” Tooele Police Sgt. Jeremy Hansen told FOX13. “We believe he had a terminal illness.”
Although police say they don’t yet have a motive for the freezing, Souron-Mathers collected at least $177,000 in government payouts from her dead husband, who was last seen on Feb. 4, 2009, at a Veterans Affairs hospital.
“I think he died, and she kept him so she didn’t have to turn in his social security,” said James Kite, a neighbor in the same retirement community. “It’s been crazy. I’ve never seen anything like what’s been going on here.”
“I guess [it is smart],” Kite added. “It’s still creepy. I wouldn’t want to live in an apartment with my dead husband or my dead wife.”
Detectives interviewed the person who notarized the letter, but according to police, she claimed she didn’t read the note, just stamped and signed it.
Authorities are still investigating and haven’t ruled out homicide.
