PHILADELPHIA — A mystery behind the macabre case of the elderly Pennsylvania woman who kept her beloved - and deceased - sister and husband at home has been partly solved with the filing of misdemeanor charges this week.
Neighbor James Flanagan, 62, admits he dug up the twin sister in October and moved her body inside Jean Stevens’ home in northeastern Pennsylvania, state police said in a complaint. The body had been buried on Stevens’ rural property.
Flanagan faces misdemeanor charges of abuse of a corpse and has also been issued a summons. He did not return a message left at his house Thursday, and no court dates have been set.
Jean Stevens, 91, has not been charged with any crimes for keeping the embalmed corpses in her ramshackle home in Wyalusing. Authorities tipped to the situation discovered the bodies in June. By then, her husband, James, had been dead for more than a decade.
WFront Section, Pages 3 on 07/23/2010