Man found dead in freezer left note saying wife did not kill him
Woman hid body for 10 years while still collecting government payments, detectives suspect
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Your support makes all the difference.A man who was found to have lain dead in a freezer in his wife’s home for a decade left a note saying she did not kill him.
The letter, signed by a lawyer and which cleared Jeanne Souron-Mathers of involvement in his death, was found only after she died last month.
Police have been treating the couple’s home in Tooele, Utah, as a crime scene, but say Paul Mathers had a terminal illness.
Detectives are investigating the possibility that monthly payments to him from the government were still sent to Mrs Souron-Mathers after his death in 2009, CNN reported.
Police Sergeant Jeremy Hansen said investigators were awaiting financial records from the Departments of Veterans Affairs (VA) and Social Security to shed light on their theory. The VA payments would total at least $177,000 (£136,000), Sgt Hansen said.
Paul Mathers, who is believed to have died between 4 February and 8 March 2009, was being treated at a local Veterans Affairs medical centre.
Not reporting the death would have been illegal.
Detectives tracked down the lawyer, who said she did not read the note, but just stamped it, Sgt Hansen told CNN.
Mrs Souron-Mathers, 75, who died from apparently natural causes, Sgt Hansen said, had stopped having dialysis treatment earlier this year.
Evan Kline, a neighbour, said: “Jeanne was a nice person, very friendly.
“She was putting out that her husband walked out on her.”
Another neighbour said he suspected she hid the body so she did not have to tell social security he had died.
“It’s creepy. I wouldn’t want to live in an apartment with my dead husband or dead wife,” he said.
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