A Florida woman, who allegedly hid her deceased mother’s body to keep receiving her disability money, was arrested this week.
Officers with the Sebastian police took 64-year-old Michele R. Hoskins into custody once they found her mother’s remains, Fox 13 reported Saturday.
“On July 7, 2022, a warrant was obtained for the arrest of Michele R. Hoskins, 64, of Sebastian, Florida for failing to report the death of her mother, Marie Hoskins, and tampering with evidence,” the Sebastian Police Department said in a social media post Friday.
According to the agency, while performing a welfare check on April 28, officers found 93-year-old Marie Hoskins dead inside a chest freezer at the home on Paddock Street:
During her interview with police detectives, Michele admits to finding her mother deceased in her bedroom. Michele subsequently purchased a deep freezer to conceal her mother’s death for the concern she would not be able to receive her disability benefits. During the execution of a search warrant on the property, a heavily soiled bed mattress was located concealed in thick brush and covered by cut palm tree branches in the backyard.
The woman’s death was determined to be from natural causes, and she died about two weeks before being hidden inside the freezer.
Before the initial discovery, Captain Timothy Wood of the Sebastian Police Department explained an officer had an “odd feeling about the situation and decided to continue to follow up with it.”
The officer exhausted leads such as hospitals or places where an elderly person might go. However, once authorities made it inside the home and entered the garage, they found the chest freezer:
A woman in Florida is accused of concealing her dead mother’s body in a freezer so she could collect her disability checks. https://t.co/QrIZLVaXPf
— FOX 13 Tampa Bay (@FOX13News) July 10, 2022
Neighbors were disturbed by the news, one of them telling reporters, “It’s sad, and kinda shocking.”
In its recent social media post, Sebastian police said Michele Hoskins was being held at the Indian River County Jail on a $10,000 bond.
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