A woman who reported her husband missing eight months ago has found his body in the couple’s home. Jennifer Maedge called police on April 27 to say 53-year-old Richard had told her he was coming home from work early. However, while his car was in the driveway when she got home, Richard was nowhere to be found.
It wasn’t until she went looking for the Christmas decorations over the holidays that she realized her “missing” husband was actually right there in their home all along.
“I decided to put the Christmas tree up, and I was looking for a tote of Christmas ornaments. That’s when I discovered him,” Jennifer told the Bellville News-Democrat of the moment she discovered Richard.
She went on say that there was tons of junk in the closet and she never goes in there, hence the reason it took her so long to find her husband. But while her story might seem somewhat suspect, KTVI claims a coroner’s report found that Richard Maedge died by suicide. His body was said to have been “mummified” by the time he was discovered.
The coroner also said that Richard’s body would have stopped smelling pretty quickly after it decomposed. However, before things got to that stage, Jennifer Maedge had police out to the house on two occasions to investigate a “strange odor” in the house. Eventually, they decided it was all down to the trash scattered all around the property. A plumber was hired to fix broken sewage pipes and eventually, the smell went away. Little did they know that the problem was far from solved.
Richard Maedge’s sister, Marilyn Toliver, criticized police for not finding her brother during their two searches of the house. However, she’s glad the family finally knows what happened. “Even though we didn’t want the outcome that we had, it’s still an outcome that we can put him to rest,” she said.
