Police have found a notarized letter believed to have been written by a man whose body was discovered in the freezer of a Utah retirement home, claiming his wife had nothing to do with his death.
Locals think Jeanne Souron-Mathers, 75, kept the death of her husband Paul Edward Mathers, 69, secret so she could claim $177,000 in government payouts after the veteran died.
Police are looking at whether tey [sic] planned for him to keep collecting his Social Security and Veteran's Affairs checks, and a friend said it was a 'clever' move if the man got the note signed to put the Remington Park Retirement Apartments resident in the clear.
Another friend said it was 'creepy' after cops in Toole, west of Salt Lake City said he could have been there for any time between a year-and-a-half and 11 years before they found the note saying his wife 'was not responsible for his death'.
'It was notarized on December 2, 2008,' Sgt. Jeremy Hansen of the Tooele Police Department, told KSTU. 'We believe he had a terminal illness.'
Cops have spoken to the woman who notarized the letter and she said she did not read the contents, which notaries are not obliged to do.
'She told the detective she didn't read the note, she just stamped it and signed it,' Hansen told Fox 13.
'There's more in the letter, but we're not releasing that yet,' police said Monday.
The man is believed to have died between February 4, 2009 - when he was last seen at a VA hospital - and March 8, 2009.
It's still illegal that Souron-Mathers kept the body in the freezer and didn't report his death. Souron-Mathers was found dead in bed with 'no apparent trauma'.
Officers checked the apartment on November 22 to see if there was any indication of how long she had been dead - and were stunned to find a second body in the freezer.
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Authorities identified him using fingerprints but an autopsy could not determine whether his cause of death from the terminal illness he had which has not been disclosed.
Neighbors said the wife was a 'very nice person' who would not 'hurt a fly.'
'Jeanne was, by all appearances, a very nice person. Very friendly. We've talked to her quite a bit and took her to doctor appointments,' Evan Kline said: 'The story that — at least she was putting out — was her husband walked out on her.'
"She never mentioned she was keeping her husband in the deep freeze." Gee, you'd think that would somehow come up during normal, small-talk, every day conversation, wouldn't you?
The apartment will probably be renumbered as 203 "B" or "C" when it goes back on the market. Then again, what happened there could be a selling point. "You live in the apartment where the dead guy was in the freezer? Coooooooool."
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