York County woman jailed after hiding dead grandmother in freezer

Cynthia Black received Social Security checks for more than a decade

A York County woman could spend nearly two years in jail after she kept her grandmother’s remains in a freezer for more than a decade, during which she received the dead woman’s Social Security checks.

According to online court dockets, 63-year-old Cynthia Black was ordered to complete a minimum of 11 months and 15 days to a maximum of 23 months, or just under two years, in jail on charges of receiving stolen property and theft by deception.

On the final charge of abuse of a corpse, she was ordered to spend two years on probation, which can only start after she has finished her jail sentence.

The guilty verdict came from a bench trial, which means a county judge presided over the case and made the final decision, not a jury. Black and the prosecution agreed to have the case heard this way.

Black was charged after authorities went to a foreclosed Dillsburg home in February 2019, after potential buyers reported finding skeletal remains in a freezer. After DNA was used to identify the remains, police connected them to Black’s maternal grandmother, Glenora Reckord Delahay.

Black told police she found her grandmother dead in their Ardmore home in 2004 but kept the older woman’s body in the freezer. Her grandmother remained in the freezer when Black moved to Dillsburg in 2007. At the time, she was using the grandmother’s federal social security payments to cover the mortgage.

In all, state police said Social Security paid $186,000 for Delahay from 2001 to 2010, including several years after her death.

The only issue that had to be ironed out before Black was sentenced, was whether she could be ordered to pay restitution for the stolen Social Security money, which attorneys addressed at the hearing last week, YDR reported.

Under Pennsylvania law, restitution against a federal agency could not be collected in a state court, the defense argued. Prosecutors said Black should have to because it was such a “significant theft” and that any federal cause would be past the statute of limitations, YDR reported.

Although York County Court of Common Pleas Judge Gregory M. Snyder said he was unhappy with his decision, the current state law prevented Black from paying the restitution.

“I don’t see anything that’s ambiguous about that statute. We cannot ignore the plain language of statutory law,” Snyder said, according to YDR. According to court dockets, Black was ordered to report to York County Prison on July 15.