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Tribune News Service
Tribune News Service
National
Kate Feldman

Florida woman kept mother’s body in freezer so she could collect disability checks, police say

A Florida woman allegedly kept her dead mother’s body on ice for weeks so she could keep cashing the elderly woman’s disability checks.

Michele Hoskins, 64, has been charged with failing to report the death of her mother and tampering with evidence, the Sebastian Police Department announced Saturday.

Hoskins’ 93-year-old mother, Marie, was found dead inside a chest freezer during a welfare check in late April, according to police.

Investigators also found a “heavily soiled bed mattress” in the backyard that had been hidden under thick brush and palm tree branches.

Hoskins eventually confessed to police that her mother had died of natural causes and, two weeks later, she purchased the deep freezer to keep the body hidden over “the concern she would not be able to receive her disability benefits.”

She is currently being held in the Indian River County Jail on a $10,000 bond.

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