Pennsylvania woman's dismembered body found in boyfriend's fridge after foul odor made neighbors call cops
PITTSBURGH, PENNSYLVANIA: A man has been charged after his missing girlfriend’s dismembered body was found in a broken refrigerator. Police discovered Kristy Jefferson’s body at Daryl Jones' house after residents at a McKees Rocks apartment building complained of a foul odor.
According to reports, when police responded to the apartment, an investigation led them to the second floor, where they discovered the 38-year-old victim’s decomposed body in the broken fridge. Her body was wrapped in a sheet.
Reports also claimed that the fridge containing Jefferson’s body was in a hallway just 20ft from Daryl Jones’ main door of the house. Jones was the victim's boyfriend.
“It was smelling. We didn’t know where the smell was coming from because the fridge was facing backward,” John Starling, a resident at the apartment, told Pittsburgh Post-Gazette news partner KDKA-TV.
Detectives who investigated the second floor and discovered the body in the fridge also checked the basement from where the foul odor was emanating. There, the officials found bags of bedsheets that were covered in bodily fluids. They also said that they discovered multiple items with Jefferson’s name on it inside and outside Jones’ apartment.
Jefferson, a mother of four, was reportedly last seen on April 26 when she FaceTimed relatives. Allegheny County Police said she was reported missing on April 29. The neighbors of Jones said that the pair fought regularly. A criminal complaint filed by the police also stated that Jones had a violent past.
Jones has been charged with abuse of a corpse and put in Allegheny County Jail without bail. A preliminary hearing in the case is scheduled for July 14.
Meanwhile, a medical examiner’s office is trying to find the cause of Jefferson’s death. “It’s hurting us. She didn’t deserve this at all,” Delisha Porter, the victim’s sister, told KDKA.
In a similar incident that happened in 2019, a Florida woman’s body was found inside a scrapped upright freezer six years after she went missing. According to reports, Heather Anne Lacey’s body was discovered by the owner of a scrap warehouse on the Northwest Eighth Street in Margate, where the freezer was kept.
Lilian Argueta found the 35-year-old woman’s body in March 2015 and confessed she was so frightened by the sight she began screaming. The 55-year-old said she initially thought she had seen either a witch, or a mannequin, but soon realized that it was a human body because of the bad odor emanating from it.
As per reports, Lacey went missing around Thanksgiving 2013. Her family had not heard from her since. “My dad was talking to her every day until Thanksgiving. She needed that phone for business and when it was disconnected, I knew something was wrong,” Amber Lacey, one of her two younger sisters, said.
A missing report was also filed in December 2013 in which her father claimed Lacey, then 30-year-old, had been living on the streets and suffered from bipolar disorder. While it was unclear how or why she went missing, family and friends feared it had to do with her drug problem.