A woman from Florida is accused of putting the body of her 93-year-old mother in a freezer so she could keep getting disability payments.
On Thursday, July 7, 64-year-old Michele Hoskins was taken into custody and accused of hiding her mother’s death and changing evidence. This happened six weeks after police found the horrible thing at a home in Sebastian, Florida.
Officers were first called to the home of Hoskins and her 93-year-old mother Marie Hoskins on April 28, when neighbors became worried because they hadn’t seen the elderly woman in a while. When the police came to check on someone, no one answered the door, so they left for a short time. Police say that after getting a key from another relative, they went back to the building and let themselves in, where they found Hoskins waiting for them.
Law and Crime says that the 64-year-old woman told the police at first that she hadn’t seen her mother in a long time. But when police checked the house, they found the 93-year-body old’s in a large chest freezer. Police in Sebastian say Hoskins told them she put her mother in the freezer so she could keep getting disability benefits. She said that she found her mother dead in her bedroom from natural causes.
Police said, “As officers looked around the rest of the house for Mrs. Hoskins to make sure she was okay, they found a dead body in a large freezer in the garage.” The tenant of the house came to the Sebastian Police Department on his own to be questioned while detectives got a search warrant for the Paddock Street home. She is then said to have bought the deep freezer and put her mother’s body inside. She told police that she did this because she was afraid they would lose their welfare payments. During a search of the house, investigators found a dirty mattress hidden in thick brush and cut palm tree branches in the backyard. The old woman died of natural causes, and her body had been dead for almost two weeks before it was put in the freezer.
“During her interview with police detectives, Michele admits that she found her mother dead in her bedroom,” the police said. After that, Michele bought a deep freezer to hide her mother’s death because she was afraid she would lose her disability benefits. During a search of the property, a very dirty bed mattress was found in the backyard, hidden by thick brush and palm tree branches that had been cut off. Marie died of natural causes, and the investigation showed that she had been dead for about two weeks before she was put in the chest freezer. Her 64-year-old daughter is being held at the Indian River County Jail until she pays a $10,000 bond.