File this one under “some people just ain’t ” … well, you know.
A Michigan woman dropped her mother’s dead body off outside a local Goodwill establishment and faces more than a decade behind bars because of it.
Kelly Rhodes, 49, is looking at 15 years in prison after she left the body of Mary Gertrude Grenia, 89, wrapped in blankets outside of a Port Huron Township, Mich., Goodwill store, the Times Herald reported.
Prosecutors reportedly don’t believe Rhodes killed the woman, but said she may have neglected to care for her elderly mother because of financial difficulties, leading to Grenia’s death.
“I love her and miss her more than I ever could imagine,” Rhodes, originally from Salem, Ore., told the judge during her sentencing on Friday.
Prosecutors told the court that Rhodes displayed a “callousness that is frankly hard to fathom,” said Mona Armstrong of Rhodes, who dumped the body beside a dumpster on March 12. She was caught because the horrific episode was captured on surveillance cameras.
Rhodes, for her part, displayed remorse for her actions even though she never explained why she did it.
“I understand I need to be punished for my poor decisions that were not sensible or logical at all,” Rhodes told the newspaper before her sentencing.
The daughter reportedly removed her mother from a nursing home three years ago, but had fallen on hard times financially and could not care for her.
The court said this excuse was woefully insufficient for her actions and found Rhodes guilty of manslaughter, fourth-degree vulnerable adult abuse and removing a dead body without permission of a medical examiner.
Grenia was suffering heart and lung disease at the time of her death. The medical examiner testified that she had no signs of trauma. Prosecutors believe Grenia died in her daughter’s truck before her corpse was dumped and left behind.
“The bottom line is, (Grenia) was not provided that simple dignity she was entitled to at her age and after raising this particular defendant,” Armstrong said, the newspaper reported.
