A woman has been arrested along with her partner on suspicion of hiding her elderly dad\u2019s body \u201cfor years\u201d inside the home they shared so they could allegedly keep on claiming his pension.<\/p>\n
Police discovered the body in an advanced state of decomposition on his bed in the town of Torrelavega near Spain\u2019s northern Cantabrian coast after a tip-off from a neighbour.<\/p>\n
Locals had grown suspicious after asking about the 88-year-old retired mine worker and reportedly getting evasive answers from the pair held.<\/p>\n
The bad smell coming from the property where animal mess and bags of rotting rubbish were found had also raised eyebrows.<\/p>\n
\nPossible mental disorder\n<\/p>\n
Torrelavega councillor Pedro P\u00e9rez Noriega said: \u201cWhat we know for now is that the couple have been arrested and that they are also considering whether they suffer from some kind of mental disorder, because the truth is that the home was in a deplorable condition.\u201d<\/p>\n
The arrests were made by officers from Spain\u2019s National Police force, who say there is nothing at this stage pointing to the pensioner suffering a violent death but believe it went unreported “for several years”.<\/p>\n
The unidentified neighbour who raised the alarm is understood to have contacted social services who called in police.<\/p>\n
The bedroom he was found in was reportedly filled with rubbish like the rest of the property.<\/p>\n
A source close to the ongoing inquiry told a local paper, claiming the couple had subsequently confessed to hiding the OAP\u2019s body after he died of \u2018natural causes\u2019 so they could carry on claiming his pension: \u201cThey denied the man was dead even though it was clear we had discovered a corpse.<\/p>\n
\nPossible charges of neglect and fraud\n<\/p>\n
\u201cThe conditions they lived in were not those of normal people, and the possibility that there may be something more is being considered, which is why they want to rule out other issues with a psychiatric examination.\u201d<\/p>\n
The unnamed woman arrested is 50 and her partner 60 years old.<\/p>\n
They are likely to face charges of abandoning a person in an at-risk situation as well as Social Security fraud and misappropiation of the dead man\u2019s assets.<\/p>\n
It was not immediately clear today how much pension money they had allegedly claimed before cops discovered the OAP\u2019s body.<\/p>\n
The dead man, a former worker at the Reocin Mine in Cantabria which was once the largest zinc deposit in Europe, is said to have been on a good pension.<\/p>\n