Usually when you hear about someone who has kept a dead body in their house for the past 18 months, it is not something that makes you really feel sorry for them. It is usually someone who has a few more buried out in the backyard and even more where they used to live. 72 year old Linda Chase lives in Jackson, Michigan and says her boyfriend died about 18 months ago. Police discovered his mummified remains this week. Ms. Chase says she kept him clean and changed his clothes and had him propped up in the chair next to hers so he could watch NASCAR with her and other television because she was lonely and didn't have anyone else. Ms. Chase is not going to face any charges for keeping him in the house but will probably go to jail for cashing all of his benefit checks.
oh my.
ReplyDeleteUm, yikes.
ReplyDeleteOh wow, someone nuttier than Telekinetic Tommy Girl!
ReplyDeleteWell i can certainly see why. What a dreamy guy!
ReplyDeleteHow very Norman Bates of her...
ReplyDeletemy best friend works in an ER she has told me a similar story only slightly more bizarre. Truly horrific.
ReplyDeleteUm, yikes.
ReplyDelete@goheels - for jackson, michigan, this guy is a catch! Women there seem to outnumber men by at least five to one and missing teeth are pretty standard. This is an area where the majority of girls have at least one kid by the time they graduate high school.
ReplyDeleteYes, what is the situation with the teeth?
DeleteJackson is where the maximum security prison was for years til they shut it down. "going to Jackson" was never a good thing
DeleteSounds like a good reason to me.
ReplyDeleteshe might of tried match.com i can't imagine the smell.
ReplyDeleteOh god, yeah!!!!!!! Ugh!!!!! Im queasy now!! Wait, no one came over ir in the house in year and a half? She is lonely!
DeleteI was thinking of the smell too. I wonder if they ate dinner together.
ReplyDeleteI think it stops smelling after awhile. And there's always Febreeze to make a room smell fresh!!!
ReplyDeletelol Cathy. Sounds like where I grew up!
ReplyDeleteShe also said he was the only man that had ever been nice to her... As creepy and wrong as it is, I feel a bit sorry for her.
ReplyDeleteThis is very sad. I feel sorry for her, too.
ReplyDeleteIs that a photo from before or after his death?
ReplyDeleteThat is so WRONG!!!
DeleteBut I am laughing.....
EWE....EWE...EEEWWWEEEE!!
ReplyDeleteEWE....EWE...EEEWWWEEEE!!
ReplyDelete:(
ReplyDeleteThere's no need to make fun of him or his looks.
For millions of years, it was probably the custom among some people to keep a body around for a wake or to speak to, etc., until it got all stinky. And, as everyone notes, what a catch!
ReplyDeleteOh the stink!!! FEBREEZE!!!!
ReplyDeleteNekromantik!
ReplyDeleteI said this on FB this morning, too, but this is very like Faulkner's short story, "A Rose for Emily." Except that she kept her dead guy laid out on a bed in a locked bedroom for DECADES and would sleep beside the corpse at night.
ReplyDeleteFormer English major and English teacher over here.
We should probably do a roll call today and see which cdan reader is missing. I am here and not incarcerated.
ReplyDelete@ Karen - immediately thought of "A Rose For Emily" too! English BA/MA here. :)
ReplyDeleteYou know quite frankly its super sad that there are so many superficial commenters as here. Seriously? Your going to judge this guy or the woman that kept him on his looks? Did your parent/guardian not teach you that its whats on the INSIDE that matters - and that if the outside is good its a bonus???
ReplyDeleteSad in Ohio
@blondegossip, I'm so glad that someone else recognized it!!!
ReplyDeleteI can kind of see where she is coming from. It's really sad and unhealthy for her to have done what she did, but I can imagine that extreme lonliness would motivate one to do a lot of things that we would consider out of the norm.
ReplyDeleteShe should never have cashed his benefit checks, however...
Jackson is a freaky place. A state prison and a lot of crazy people. This is not surprising.
ReplyDelete@Sadie:First visit to CDAN? Wait til Vicki gets back from vacation! Sometimes people laugh in sad situations. That is all.
ReplyDeleteShe should never have cashed his benefit checks is right...however making good choices may not be her strong suit....besides...it probably cost a little $$ for his "upkeep"....handiwipes,febreeze etc. So sad in many ways.
ReplyDeleteI just can't imagine how she was able to change his clothes - where's the Youtube video on that?
ReplyDeleteSad, her loneliness must have blinded her to the reality of the situation.
ReplyDeleteShe cashed the checks so she could take care of the two of them.
Love is blind and apparently it works wonders on your sense of smell as well.
@Karen: I immediately thought of A Rose for Emily, too!
ReplyDeleteSadie, we come here for the snark and entertainment. If you want benevolence, you should probably not be on a gossip site. "Just sayin'"
ReplyDeleteAs someone single in my late 30's and trying to date again, I would keep a dead guy around if he was a cool guy. It's tough out there.
ReplyDeleteOMG you guys are funny! Making me do the real lol.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete@Sherry and Leekay, I commented on the comments about his looks too.
ReplyDeleteIt's not nice to make fun of him based on his looks. Think about yesterday's post about the mother abandoning her daughter. Would it have been ok to make fun of her looks?
Jane, that was seriously funny! I'm in my late 40s. It doesn't get easier, I am afraid.
ReplyDeleteAwww seems she kept him looking nice and clean and tidy. I suppose she assumed she was entitled to carer’s allowance!
ReplyDeleteShe was lonely, in another article claimed not to have noticed a smell, CASHED HIS CHECKS.
ReplyDeleteI can't decide.
if it really was about her being lonely, you cant help but feel bad for her. but she was cashing his checks...
ReplyDeleteI think appearance-snark should be reserved for people who put themselves 'out there'. This guy never asked for publicity, never made money off it.
ReplyDeleteThe lady is clearly very disturbed; as wrong as it was to cash the checks, putting her in prison would be pointless. She needs in-patient mental health treatment, or house arrest. She's not a danger to anyone. I'm so lonely-feeling, just thinking about her long-term denial. How sad.
I would say I kept my bf around because I was "lonely" if I was cashing his checks, too.
ReplyDeleteHe looked like a happy guy. I feel bad for her :(
ReplyDeleteActually now I'm like, she was lonely, claimed she didn't notice a smell, BUT cashed his checks, changed BUT didn't put him in a freezer which if she was a sane money grubbing person, she would have cared about the decomposition but I really think she's mentally ill now that I"ve thought about it.
ReplyDeleteGives a whole new meaning to keeping a man around the house.
ReplyDelete@ Sherry - no, not my first visit. Been here for more than 3 years now. I still think its horrible to judge a book by its cover.
ReplyDelete@LeeKay say what you will but I still stand with my first comment.
Tru Leigh--those checks aren't very big, I used to cash them. I'm certain she couldn't pay the bills otherwise---but who would LIVE WITH a corpse for $500-$1000/month? A mentally ill person.
ReplyDeleteThe people who do it for the money bury the corpses or shut them into a back closet or bedroom, not sit next to them every day in the living room.
@karen
ReplyDeleteEnglish prof here and thought the SAME thing!
Poor lady
Maybe if she stopped cashing the cheques somebody might notice he wasn't around and ask questions.
ReplyDeleteIt's creepy and wrong but very very sad too. I cannot imagine being that lonely. I hope I never do.
@Jane, single, same age, feel the same way. We should go swing by the morgue. Ive been on Plenty of Fish and Ive seen/talked to some of what's out there..anyway, backing out of my driveway now. Shall I pick you up?
ReplyDeleteWhat about the maggots? Im not sure why keeping him around physically has anything to do with his checks unless she still thought he was alive. I mean, she could have buried him in the backyard or froze him...That seems like two different stories there...I dont mean this to sound glib but either place she goes to will have more social interaction than house arrest/solitary confinement. I hope they take pity on her and send her to a mental hospital or assisted living or something so she cant self isolate. Pitting her in prison is sick. Loneliness is as painful as a car accident injury. :(
ReplyDeleteShe probably didn't "cash" them. The money was probably a direct deposit.
ReplyDeleteThere was a Nova program about Smell. It said some people are born without much of a sense of smell. Maybe she couldn't smell him. Or it was like on Hoarders. You know those people can't smell.
Michigan is the Florida of the North.
ReplyDeleteWell, he was cheaper than a Real Doll.
ReplyDeleteI think it's really sad how lonely she is.
ReplyDelete4th for "A Rose for Emily." Thank goodness some people still read REAL writing.
ReplyDeleteSad. I agree that jail doesn't sound like the proper place for her.
ReplyDeleteI don't get how his body "mummified" rather than just rotting?
ReplyDelete@yawnathon, hey! I live in Michigan and Michigan's... uh, you're right, much of it is a cesspool, namely, 90% of the lower peninsula. I'm up here in the upper peninsula which, having returned to my birthplace after 30 years in Chicago and San Francisco (both of which I loved), I can assure you is *nothing* like downstate and is indeed quite fabulous. ;-)
um i think this is so sad. just proves eventhough we have technology and all of thew advancements we have made....something as simple as love-just can't take the place. i feel for this woman. she'll be so lonely now that they take the body...esp. in jail. she'll die w/in a year, i bet.
ReplyDelete@ Figgy - I know. I spent my secondary schooling years in MI (lower P) and it's a hellhole as far as I'm concerned. Flint, govt @ Det mayoral scandals, oh I could go on. The coolest thing I did was party once at George Clinton's place. My mom's side all lives in MI so we make the trek back at least once annually. It's a shame bc it's really a beautiful state, but I booked it the second I could and went very far out of state for college. And since then, I've lived in FL, CA, and also Chi too. It's hard to explain to people who've never lived there - what a nutty place it is.
ReplyDelete