Pennsylvania woman hides dead grandma's remains in freezer for 15 years to receive social security payments
YORK HAVEN, PENNSYLVANIA: A Pennsylvania woman who reportedly stored the remains of her dead grandmother in a freezer for 15 years so she could collect her social security checks has been arrested and charged, according to police officials. The case of 61-year-old Cynthia Black was first brought to the attention of authorities last year when they responded to a Kralltown Road property in Warrington Township on a report of human remains in a freezer, according to the York Daily Record.
Two women had discovered the remains while inspecting the home to possibly purchase it and had found bones inside several trash bags in a freezer located in an outbuilding. During their preliminary investigation, detectives learned that Cynthia Black and her partner Glenn Black were the last private owners for the property, which was in foreclosure.
During a subsequent autopsy performed on the remains on February 11, 2019, DNA samples were taken from both the remains and Cynthia Black and sent to the National Missing Persons Program at the University of North Texas Center for Human Identification. The genetic data showed that the human remains originated from Cynthia Black's maternal grandmother, Glenora Reckord Delahay.
The Blacks had reportedly been living with Delahay in Ardmore, with an affidavit stating that Cynthia Black had started providing medical care for her grandmother between 2000 and 2001. While they were living at that residence, Glenn, meanwhile, developed health problems that limited him to the first floor with Cynthia living on the second floor with the older woman and delivering her meals.
Glenn later told state police that Cynthia did not like caring for her grandmother and that he last saw Delahay alive sometime between 2001 and 2002. When questioned, the 61-year-old claimed she had found Delahay dead at the Ardmore home in March 2004, at which point she would have been 97 years old. She told police she carried her grandmother's remains to the basement after she died and placed them in a freezer and that she moved it to York County in 2007.
She said she needed the income that her grandmother received from social security to pay the mortgage at the new residence. In March 2019, state police obtained beneficiary payment records from the Social Security Administration that were made to Delahay and found more than $186,000 had been paid between 2001 and 2010 to a credit union account held by Delahay and Glenora Waltzinger, Cynthia Black's mother.
The state police then obtained more financial records through a search warrant and uncovered wire transfers of funds from the credit union account to an account at a different bank in the names of Delahay, Waltzinger and Cynthia Black. These transfers started in March 2001 and continued till January 2011, when Waltzinger died.
Cynthia Black was arrested at her residence in South Front Street this Wednesday, May 27, and charged with theft by unlawful taking, receiving stolen property and abuse of a corpse. She was transported to the York County Judicial Center for processing before she was released on $50,000 unsecured bail.