Woman given 21 months in prison in ‘grandma’ case
A woman was sentenced to 21 months in prison after she stored her grandmother’s corpse in a Dayton home’s basement.
Staci Lauhon-Wheeler, 46, of Huntington, West Virginia, was sentenced after being convicted of gross abuse of a corpse and grand theft.
Lauhon-Wheeler’s legal troubles began Jan. 31, 2019, when Mary Alice Lauhon was found in a Virginia Avenue basement after Megan Lauhon, Mary’s granddaughter, called 911 from North Carolina.
”I’ve already called before, and they thought I was crazy when I called, and I wish that I was crazy,” she told 911 dispatchers.
Megan Lauhon said she was contacted by a friend of her sister, Lauhon-Wheeler, who told her their grandmother was “deceased and in a freezer in the basement of a home in Dayton, Ohio,” according to a court affidavit.
The resident of the Virginia Avenue home reportedly told investigators Lauhon-Wheeler lived with her briefly and that she stored some personal items in the garage and basement.
While in the “coal room” of the basement, police found a plastic tub that contained a body, later confirmed to be Mary, according to the affidavit. A preliminary autopsy did not reveal signs of injury or trauma.
The autopsy report said Mary weighed 66 pounds, was curled into the fetal position and was only wearing socks and a disposable diaper. Plastic bags and clothes were piled on top of her body. The plastic tub was not in a freezer, as initially reported.