Couple charged with keeping parent’s ‘mummified’ body secret for six years while cashing his pension

Extended family members say ‘now we know why’ they were denied contact with Mike Carroll for six years

Kirk and Lynn Ritter are both charged with wire fraud and theft of government funds (PA Archive)

A married couple has been charged with fraudulently collecting more than £170,000 in pension benefits on behalf of one of their dead parents, while concealing his “mummified” body inside their home for six years.

Mike Carroll’s pacemaker showed that he died in 2016 at the age of 81. But police in Kansas City did not discover his body until six years later, after his son-in-law Kirk Ritter called to report his death.

Prosecutors allege that Mr Ritter and his wife Lynn, both aged 61, continued depositing and spending from her father Carroll’s bank account even while his body became “mummified” on a bed in the home he owned.

The couple are due to appear in a Kansas court next month (Getty Images)

Extended family members told the Kansas City Star newspaper that the Ritters were financially dependent on Carroll and served as his caretaker, having lived with him since the 1990s in the home he had bought with his wife.

In recent years, the couple would repeatedly give them excuses about why Carroll could not visit or receive phone calls, family members alleged, with one telling the paper last year: “We were denied contact with him. And now we know why.”

The Ritters both face one count of wire fraud and two counts of theft of government funds, the paper reported, citing documents published by the US District of Kansas on Wednesday. Both are due to appear in court next month.

Prosecutors allege that the pension and Social Security payments Carroll received over the six years after his death totalled $216,067 (£170,000). Bank records from that time show cheques being written from his bank account and cashed by the Ritters.

While Carroll’s death in the Overland Park suburb was initially investigated by police as suspicious, the Johnson County Medical Examiner’s Office later established that he died of natural causes.

Additional reporting by AP