A Florida woman has been indicted for keeping her dead mother's body in a bedroom for six years while collecting more than $200,000 in pension benefits, U.S. prosecutors said on Thursday.Penelope Sharon Jordan of Sebastian, Florida, was charged by a federal grand jury last week with Social Security fraud and theft, the U.S. Attorney's Office in Miami said. No charges for keeping a rotting corpse in the bedroom were leveled.
Police found the decaying body of her mother, Timmie Jordan, on a bed in a spare bedroom at the mother's home in late March, when they were called to investigate a report of nuisance cats. Dead cats, it turns out. Penelope Jordan told police her mother had died in 2003, so what does she have to do with this?
The indictment alleged Jordan concealed her mother's death in order to receive both her U.S. Social Security benefits and her military survivor's benefit. Her attorney stated the fact that she did not conceal the body left her blameless and proved that government entitlement programs were highly inefficient.
Jordan collected $61,415 from Social Security and $176,461 from the military pension during the six years, prosecutors said - which is equivalent to less than $40,000 per year. A pittance for the amount of work she did keeping her moth in the house.
She could face up to 15 years in prison.Local media reported that the 61-year-old woman told police her mother died of old age and she kept the remains because she couldn't afford burial expenses. Rather, she chose to let her rot slowly until she could disposed of the remains through conventional waste management.
An autopsy found no signs of foul play. An autopsy of Ms. Jordan would have revealed something much different.
According to a local paper, police found many cats on Jordan's property but she denied they were hers. She stated the cats belonged to her mother.
(Reporting by Jim Loney, editing by Jane Sutton and Sandra Maler, guest writer / editor The YeetleMaster.)
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