Utah police: Body was in freezer 10 years before discovery

The body of a man had been in his wife’s freezer for 10 years before police discovered it while searching the apartment last month after the 75-year-old woman died of natural causes, Utah police said Thursday. Authorities are investigating how 69-year-old Paul Edward Mathers died, and whether the woman had any help putting the body into the deep freezer located in a utility room, the Deseret News reported.

The woman used a wheelchair before died, but did not need one in early 2009 when her husband died, police said. Paul Mathers was not a large man, said Sgt. Jeremy Hansen of the police department in Tooele, Utah. His body was found Nov. 22, after police conducting a welfare check, found 75-year-old Jeanne Sourone-Mathers dead inside her apartment of natural causes. Police found her husband’s body as they searched the apartment west of Salt Lake City. Authorities are now investigating why the woman kept the body. They are looking at whether she wanted to keep collecting his Social Security and Veteran’s Affairs checks, Hansen said.