Woman Drove for Days with Dead Mother in Car
Fri Apr 30, 2004 07:24 AM ET
MIAMI (Reuters) - An Oklahoma woman drove around for days with her mother's decomposing body in the passenger seat of her car, Florida investigators said on Thursday.
Sheriff's deputies found the woman's body on Tuesday in a car parked outside a Wal-Mart store in the northeast Florida city of Palm Coast. The medical examiner ruled the 65-year-old woman had died of natural causes at least five days earlier.
The woman's daughter, in her mid-30s, was inside the 24-hour store, where she had been shopping since the night before. She was incoherent and unable to give a clear account of her journey to Florida, Flagler County Sheriff's investigators said.
Police went to investigate when other shoppers complained about the odor coming from the parked car.
They traced the auto registration and pieced together details of the trip from receipts found in the car.
The women had lived together in Covington, Oklahoma, and left there several weeks ago. They traveled through Texas and North Carolina on the 1,300-mile trip to Florida, the investigators said. It was not clear if the mother died at a stop-off or in the car.
The daughter was hospitalized for psychiatric examination. No charges were filed because the mother's death was from natural causes. No further details were available.
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