A 39-year-old woman has been detained after the bones of a missing individual were discovered buried underneath a residence. According to a news release from the Amite City Authorities Department, on June 24, police got a report that human remains could likely be found under a property.
Officers rushed to the 300 block of South Third Street, where they reportedly entered the vacant property and saw the floor had been redone. Police claimed officers exposed the floor and dug into the dirt, where they located Angela Stearns’ remains. The 59-year-old had been missing for almost a year, according to authorities. The human remains were positively identified as Stearns by the Tangipahoa Parish Coroner’s Office.
Upon additional investigation, police claimed Joanna Phelps was arrested and charged with first-degree murder and failing to disclose the commission of certain offenses. She was booked into the Tangipahoa Parish Jail. The remains discovered have been positively identified as those of missing person Angela Stearns.
**Woman charged after storing grandma’s remains for 15 years**
It had been nearly a year since Stearns was last seen. According to the Amite City Police Department, the human remains were buried under a house on June 24, 2022. The remains were taken to the Coroner’s Office in Tangipahoa Parish. Joanna Phelps, a resident of Amite, Louisiana, has been taken into custody on charges of principal to first-degree murder and failure to report the commission of certain felonies. The Tangipahoa Parish Jail is now the new home for Joanna, the department says. The investigation is still ongoing.
One to two years in prison awaits a 61-year-old lady who hid her grandmother’s body in the freezer so she could collect her Social Security benefits. According to the court records of York County, Cynthia Black was given a sentence of eleven and a half months to two years for theft by deception and receiving stolen property.
For her misuse of a dead body, the judge gave her two years of probation. According to the York Daily Record, in 2019, two women were touring the foreclosed home on Kralltown Road in search of a potential purchase when they discovered the bags of remains in the outbuilding’s freezer. According to reports, Black informed police in Pennsylvania that she discovered her grandmother, Glenora Delahay, dead at their Ardmore home in March of 2004.
Reportedly, Black froze her grandmother’s body and took it with her when she moved to York County. Mortgage payments were allegedly made in part by Black using Delahay’s Social Security benefits. Autopsy results were inconclusive, but the York Daily Record claims that Delahay was between 67 and 110 years old.
news from snbc13.com
