A Florida woman kept her 93-year-old mother’s dead body in her freezer to keep collecting the elder’s disability payments, police say. WPBF reports that a warrant was obtained on Thursday for the arrested of 64-year-old Michele Rene Hoskins of Sebastian for failing to report Marie Hoskins’ death and tampering with evidence.
The day after a 93-year-old Sebastian woman’s body was discovered in a freezer in her garage, her daughter told police she wanted her death kept secret to continue receiving her mother’s Social Security benefit payments. https://t.co/Zh1c5s5q7Y
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- Marie Hoskins’ body was found in a chest freezer in April 2022. Authorities found the body when performing a welfare check, at which point Michele claimed her mother was at a doctor’s appointment, though she couldn’t name the doctor or say how her mother got to the appointment. Michele later admitted to detectives that she’d found her mother dead in her bedroom and then purchased a chest freezer to conceal the death.
- Michele went to great lengths to conceal her mother’s death. In addition to hiding the corpse in a chest freezer, police say they found a heavily soiled mattress in the backyard covered by palm tree branches and hidden under thick brush. Michele “found her mother deceased in her bed and decided not to contact authorities so that she could continue to receive Social Security disability benefits that she would not be afforded if it was known that her mother was deceased,” Detective Kenneth McDonough wrote in an arrest affidavit.
- Marie Hoskins died of natural causes. Authorities didn’t suspect any foul play and believe that Hoskins died naturally. She had been dead for roughly two weeks before she was placed in the chest freezer.
- Hoskins was arrested and taken into custody. She’s currently being held at the Indian River County Jail on $10,000 bond after her first court appearance on Friday, according to WPBF. It’s unclear when she will next appear in court.
