When mom’s body began to decompose, daughter used odd trick to hide smell, cops say
A Virginia woman has been charged with felony concealment of a body, after police in Bristol found her dead mother sitting in a chair with “her legs propped up,” reports TV station WVLT and other Virginia media outlets.
The suspect, 55-year-old Jo-Whitney Outland, is accused of using more than 40 blankets to cover the body and the floor around it, along with 60-plus air fresheners to mask the smell, reported WJHL.
Sgt. Steve Crawford identified the body as 78-year-old Rosemary Outland and he told The Bristol Herald Courier that her body was found in a living room chair by relatives who grew suspicious and crawled in the window of her home on Pine Street to investigate.
News outlets did not say why Jo-Whitney Outland did not report the death or why she allegedly kept her mother’s body around the house.
Rosemary Outland is believed to have died on Dec. 29 of natural causes, said the newspaper.
However, VirginiaFirst.com noted the decomposition of the body was so advanced that a medical examiner will be needed to do a positive identification.
“The body was in a chair, her legs were propped up and the whole thing was covered in blankets and there were air fresheners on top of the blankets, around the chair and in between the layers of the blankets,” Crawford told TV station WVLT. “That’s how we found her, just any way to try to mask the odor.”
He counted 54 blankets and pieces of clothing on the body, along with 66 air fresheners, some filled with carpet cleaning powder, the Bristol Herald Courier reported.
Jo-Whitney Outland was living in her mother’s home at the time of the incident and continued staying there after her mother died, the newspaper said.
Concealment of a body is a Class 6 felony in Virginia, and punishment can include imprisonment for one to five years and a fine of up to $2,500, according to Virginia.gov.
This story was originally published February 15, 2019 at 7:40 AM with the headline "When mom’s body began to decompose, daughter used odd trick to hide smell, cops say."