that's pretty damn cold

News article: Family members left elderly relative to die, then hid her body, prosecutors say

Get a load of this:

When Mary Coleman died in May 2009, two days after she fell to the floor at her sister's house, her sister and nephew decided there was nothing they could do about it and went out for pizza.

Then, according to a criminal complaint filed Tuesday, Veronica King and her son, Steven King, kept Coleman's death a secret, hiding her body in the basement and then the garage of the house on Whenona Drive until Madison police found her mummified remains more than three months later.

Steven and Veronica King told police that Coleman, 70, had fallen down in a bedroom on May 7, 2009, then lay there, talking now and then, until her death. "I told her quite frankly to shut up because that old woman in the backyard" would call the police, Steven King told police, according to the complaint.

After Coleman died, Veronica King told police, they didn't call to have her body removed "because we had other things to do that day," the complaint states.

Veronica King, 71, of Madison, and Steven King, 45, of Evansville, were charged with first-degree reckless homicide, bank fraud, hiding a corpse and recklessly subjecting an individual at risk to abuse. The two are scheduled to appear in court Thursday.

I'd love to know what was really going through the survivors' heads. Surely it couldn't have been as simple as a shrug followed by a "Well, that's it, then... you up for pizza?"


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