Fox 13 KSTUDuring a welfare check in an elderly woman’s home in Utah, police found two bodies: the woman herself and her husband – only he was in the freezer.
Just last month, November 22, police in Utah arrived at Jeanne Souron-Mathers’ retirement home to conduct a regular welfare check.
When they entered her home, they were shocked to find her dead. But as officers continued to look around the home, the more disturbing part of the check was lying in the freezer.
Check out the local news report below:
After finding Jeanne, who was 75 years old, officers looked around the home to try and establish a timeline as to when she passed away.
A natural step was the fridge and freezer in the utility room, checking food for sell-by dates and other clues so they gain a better understanding of when she died. When they opened the door to the freezer, however, they didn’t find frozen goods – they came across a man’s corpse.
Speaking to local media, City Police Department Sgt. Jeremy Hansen said, via Fox 13 KSTU:
I’ve been here 13 years – this is one of the strangest cases. We’ve never had anything like this.
The man in the freezer was eventually identified as Paul Mathers: a 58-year-old veteran and the husband of Jeanne, last seen in 2009. After discovering the bodies, police initially described the case as ‘very suspicious’. However, in the subsequent weeks, a number of clues have piled up indicating what may have happened in the home.
Fox 13 KSTUDuring a further search of Souron-Mathers’ home, officers came across a notarised letter written in 2008, seemingly from Paul – declaring that we wasn’t killed by his wife.
Sgt. Hansen added that it’s believed Paul had a terminal illness, and it’s estimated he died sometime between February 4, 2009 – the date of his last appointment at a Veterans Affairs hospital – and March 8, 2009.
However, it’s yet to be confirmed whether the signature on the letter was definitely Paul’s. In addition, the woman who notarised the letter told the police she never read it before signing and stamping it.
Fox 13 KSTUIn the estimated 10 years since Paul’s death, investigators have concluded that Jeanne collected roughly $177,000 in Veterans Affairs benefits, while they’re still working to establish whether she continued to collect Social Security benefits.
While Hansen added that they were awaiting the results of an autopsy to confirm the cause of Paul’s death, he said detectives were in the process of ‘wrapping up’ the investigation.
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After graduating from Glasgow Caledonian University with an NCTJ and BCTJ-accredited Multimedia Journalism degree, Cameron ventured into the world of print journalism at The National, while also working as a freelance film journalist on the side, becoming an accredited Rotten Tomatoes critic in the process. He’s now left his Scottish homelands and took up residence at UNILAD as a journalist.