It's easy to not be an asshole when you're dead.

'A Rose for Emily' -- never thought I'd see it in real life though. What setting on your AC do you need in order to get a corpse to mummify?

This is layer upon layer of fucked up. From that heartbreaking quote, to the fact that she was still cashing his social security checks (puts this in an entirely new and sinister light) not to mention that he died during Christmas two years ago, and his family never seriously tried to contact him until now.

What. The. Fuck.

I know people are going to say she did it for the money. It is easier to blame this on greed, but I can imagine the grief and denial she may have felt all too well, especially if there was fear mixed in.

Fear of eviction, of having his estranged family come and take away their shared belongings, fear of having to live off of one SS check alone. Easier to pretend he was still there with her, watching TV. Easier to pretend she wasn't alone.

@4 +++

@4 Nah. She did it for the cash. All the rest is bullshit. She left the body there so that when it was discovered, she could pretend he had just died. It took longer than expected for the body to be discovered. The guy who owns the house next to ours died not long ago, and the woman he was shacking up with tried to get in touch with his kids as he was dying, but she said they wouldn't respond. Sadly, folks get estranged for years from their families all the time.

@6,

It seems like if she disposed of the body, she could make a much more believable claim that he only just recently ditched her. Unless the authorities found the body, it would be difficult to prove she was lying, especially if the guy was that estranged from his family and friends.

Perhaps it wasn’t so much that he was great company after his death, but that he was still a great supporter.

Greed or what wingedcat said - or both. Fear and greed are not mutually exclusive.

Any true crime/serial killer genre fans among you should pick up a copy of "Killing for Company", the story of Dennis Nillsen (sp?) He was a lonely Englander who worked for their social services agency and eventually took to picking up like minded folks at the pub, bringing them back to his apartment, killing them, and keeping their corpses around his place for a while.

Sad, sympathetic figure, quick easy read as I recall.

@7 You expect a 72 year old woman to somehow dispose of a body?

In any case, whether it be greed or extreme loneliness, this story is just all sorts of fucked up.

forget the weekend. 20-teens at bernie's....

i don't begrudge her the SS fraud. it's a pittance. ann romney's horse probably pooped that amount this morning.

I really love the mentality of prosecute the old lady going on. You know, justice isn't just about prosecution and punishment. Justice is also about mercy.

@13

Justice is also about protecting future victims. What, do people think this old woman is going to go out and steal more bodies?

Lock her up! Lock her up! Punish the guilty! Orderly society! Orderly society!

A few years ago something like this happened in a small town near where my mother lives and there were articles in the local paper. The big take-away point from the **reporter's** point of view (you know, the person who wrote the "fact article" and wasn't supposed to engage in armchair fundagelical psychology)?

The woman who kept her dead husband's body in the house for about the same period of time as this one was an ATHEIST, and of course, because atheists have no belief in an afterlife the thought of death just unhinges them so completely that they can't bury a body. I don't remember for sure, but I think "atheist" was even in the headline.

/snark
so you suppose she was an atheist?
/snark off

WOW. There are some majorly fucked up fuckers out there.