REDFORD TOWNSHIP, Mich. — A man lived with the decomposing corpse of a 72-year-old woman for about six months before court officers serving an eviction notice discovered her body moldering on a sofa in a Detroit-area trailer home, police said Friday.
Dennis McCauley, 64, was arrested Monday after letting the officer into the trailer at Long’s Mobile Home Court in Redford Township, west of Detroit.
“The officer noted a pungent smell of decay and observed a corpse in the room immediately to the right of the front door,” Redford Township police Sgt. Kevin Crittenden said Friday. “He called us. The corpse had obviously been deceased for some time and was partially dried out.”
McCauley told the officer that the woman was called Ann Marquis and that he did not kill her, Crittenden said. Preliminary results from an autopsy indicate she died of natural causes. Toxicology results were pending.
Marquis was named in the eviction notice and the trailer was in her name.
“We know they lived together about three years,” Crittenden said. “Based on witness statements and other statements it would appear Ann Marquis died sometime in November.”
McCauley was arraigned Monday for failing to report a death, mutilation of a corpse, larceny, uttering and publishing involving social security checks, identity theft and other charges.
“When we found the body, the upper arm was separated from the right shoulder,” Crittenden said, referring to the mutilation charge. The autopsy determined that separation occurred after Marquis died.
McCauley was ordered held in the Wayne County Jail on a $250,000 bond. He did not have an attorney Friday.