ISDP July 2015: Abandoned Structures and Squatters Edition

It seems like only yesterday, yet is has been a full month since we last gathered the late-breaking accounts of recently deceased individuals whose remains were discovered through their putrescent emanations. Time flies when you are constantly on the move, as we are here in our newly adopted home state of Colorado.

Our June edition was posted from a dilapidated farm building on the eastern plains where we had holed up following our successful #escapefromNJ. But due to some unpleasantness with the Weld County Sheriff’s Department and a notice of illegal occupancy from some dick who thinks that just because his family has owned this property since 1910 it entitles him to shove us and our belongings to the shoulder of a state highway, we had to seek new accommodations.

Well, we were quite successful. Our new digs are next to a stand of shady cottonwoods, out on the Pawnee National Grasslands.

It looks like no one has occupied the structure since about 1948, when the last owner succumbed to a severe case of jake leg. Being on Federal lands and all, we figure it will require a lot more lawyering to evict us anytime soon. Besides, we have a certificate from the Elizabeth Warren Institute of Genealogy showing that we are 1/64th Pawnee. Booyah.

From WBFO 88.7 FM in Buffalo, New York, “Buffalo’s NPR News Station”:

The body of a dismembered woman was found Tuesday night in a house in Niagara Falls. 

[Wait! NPR does dismemberments? Since when?—Ed.] 

The grisly discovery was made around 10:30 p.m. at a vacant home at 1129 Willow Avenue after a 911 call from a neighbor who reported a foul odor. The head, arms, and feet were removed from the deceased woman.

The victim, who police were able to identify, was a 46-year-old local woman. The case has disturbing similarities to the 2012 dismemberment of another local woman.

Then there is this case from Frederiksted, St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands

dispatchers received a call of a foul odor emanating from the area of Prince and King Cross Streets, north of the Anglican Church in Frederiksted.

The area turned out to be a building that had collapsed several days before. When authorities cleared away the rubble, they found the body of 56-year-old man who had been squatting in the structure before it caved in.

The body of a 40-year-old man who had been reported missing days earlier was found in an abandoned house in East Wichita, Kansas. However, police were already checking the home when they noticed the foul odor and discovered the body. So, as per many precedents of the Rules Committee, there is no ISDP here. Move along, please.

Car Culture

Workers at a car dealership in Woodland, California, called police to complain about a foul odor coming from the back lot. Officers discovered the body of man in the back of an SUV that was for sale. They are treating the case as a homicide pending a coroner’s report.

The deceased was later identified as a 35-year-old Woodland resident.

Tonya Slaton

The body of Quincy Jamar Davis, missing since 2004 when he disappeared as a seventh-grader, has been found inside a black plastic bag in the trunk of his mother’s car. Forty-four year old Tonya Slaton was pulled over by police in Richmond, Virginia, for driving with expired license plates. During a search of the car, a trooper noticed an odor coming from the bag and opened it, only to find the child’s remains. Astute readers will note that the search was underway before the odor was detected, which means this cannot qualify as a legit ISDP incident. (Our by-laws require that the stench of decay be the factor that leads to the discovery of the deceased.) However, Ms. Slaton’s mobile storage of her son’s remains, and presumably her continuing to drive around town with them in the trunk for over a decade, most definitely earns her a nomination for the 2015 Norman Bates Award™.

Loyal readers will recall our coverage earlier this year of Holden Clark, the 15-year-old from Corpus Christi, Texas. The young man is accused of killing his mother and stuffing her remains into a trash can in the kitchen. He then proceeded to hang around the house which earned him a nod for this year’s Norman Bates Award™. Just to bring you up to date, Clark’s attorney recently asked the court the release him from the Juvenile Detention Center because he had, you know, followed all the rules there for the last six months. For some reason, Judge Tim McCoy denied the lad’s request.

This headline from the Pensacola News Journal—“Man lives months with mom’s corpse on couch”—is enough by itself to earn 60-year-old Michael Eugene Sticken a nomination for the 2015 Norman Bates Award™. Sticken had been living with his mother in Pace, Florida, but since January had deflected attempts by family members to call or visit 81-year-old Joyce Willis. A Santa Rosa County sheriff’s deputy was asked to make a welfare check on the old lady.

Michael Eugene Sticken

When the deputy arrived at the residence he immediately noticed a foul odor. Upon entering the house, he found two couches pushed together with blankets piled on top. Under the blankets, the deputy found a female who was so badly decomposed as to be unrecognizable.

The Medical Examiner estimates that Ms. Willis died one to four months previously.

Sticken, who had been withdrawing his mother’s monthly social security payments from their joint bank account, was charged with grand theft and failure to report a death.

Young People Today

A 15-year-old girl who “smelled a foul odor” followed her nose to discover a dead body near the Stone Mountain apartment complex in DeKalb County, Georgia.

In Ormand Beach, Florida,

A woman told police that she found a man’s body wrapped in plastic shortly before 10 a.m. Friday after she smelled a foul odor inside the home in the Hunter’s Ridge subdivision near State Road 40.

She also saw Garrett Schroeder, 22, walking away from the home. Police obtained an arrest warrant for him. Three days later, Schroeder was found dead, an apparent suicide.

The plastic-wrapped body discovered by the woman who smelled it, turns out to be that of Christian Schroeder, Garrett’s father.

Schroeder had been arrested in 2014 on charges of aggravated battery with a deadly weapon after he allegedly attacked his mother with a hammer. Authorities believe the suspect had a rocky past with both his mother and father.

Apartment Complexes

City of Batavia: 400 Towers residents complain about handling of neighbor's death. 

Lori Kilanowski had tried to get help for a fellow resident who was found dead June 12 at 400 Towers, she says. 

“I said somebody died up there,” she said Wednesday at the East Main Street complex.

And she was right. Always Trust Your Nose™. Management denies that it failed to act expeditiously.

In Rochester, Minnesota,

Police say a 35-year-old woman was found [dead] around 4 p.m. Monday in her apartment after neighbors complained of a foul odor.

And finally, from Dallas, Georgia

Holmes’ body was found in a wooded area last Friday, July 3, by a local resident who was investigating a foul odor. The body was badly decomposed, police said.

Well, th-th-that’s all, folks! See you next month for what promises to be a bumper crop of ISDP as we head into the hottest month of the year.