Chicago man claims he did not know that the wife he had been living with had died a month ago

In a shocking case, a man in Chicago was reportedly sharing an apartment with his dead wife for almost a month. The 60-year-old man has claimed that he had never bothered to look inside her room, despite the foul smell in their Uptown apartment.

The body of Tamara Wilson was discovered by police on 10 December in her Illinois apartment after they responded to a wellness check. Her husband, Steven Seiler, who was also living in the same apartment maintained his innocence and claimed that he realised that his wife was dead after he received a call from their daughter, who is 22-year-old.

During their wellness check, police found a rotting smell and "bodily fluids" smeared all over the apartment, which forced them to open the locked bedroom door where they discovered Wilson's "badly decomposed" body.

Police arrested Seiler on Tuesday (19 December) when he returned to the apartment holding his wife's ID, Social Security Card, debit card, birth certificate and wedding ring.

The Cook County Medical Examiner's Office said that by Seiler's timeline he should have noticed the smell of the dead body by 24 November. He had also reportedly used her debit card to buy a gold coin off the internet and sold it at a pawn shop a week later.

Seiler has been charged with concealing a death, the Daily Mail reported.

However, on 22 December, the old man was released on electronic monitoring. The woman's body has been sent for a toxicology test.

The couple had been married since 2014 and had a troubled relationship. In October, Seiler had pleaded guilty to domestic battery charges for assaulting Wilson and following which he was barred from going to the apartment under the influence of drugs and alcohol.

In another lawsuit stemming from a domestic violence case in 2009, Wilson had won $120,000 (£89,731) from Seiler.