Woman arrested for living with mother's mummified body wrapped in newspaper and bedding

A woman, who had been missing for over a year, was found dead in a mummified state at her daughter's home in Lincoln in Washington County, Arkansas.

Gloria Pike, a 72-year-old woman who was battling stage 4 breast cancer, was not heard from in over a year. Her brother, George Maness, reported her missing on July 21 this year. However, when police questioned the deceased's daughter, Geanee Pike, she told them her mother wasn't missing, but with a friend. When pressed to reveal more information, she could not name the friend or say where the two were.

The 54-year-old also refused a request from police to search her home and said she did not have access to her mother's bank accounts or credit cards. Authorities finally found a clue when they subpoenaed Gloria's bank account records and spotted a transaction at the Dollar General in Lincoln on July 27, 2021. Detectives recovered the surveillance footage of the store and saw Geanee using her mother's check card to make a purchase.

Detectives were granted a search warrant and entered Geanee's home to find Gloria's remains on a bed in the living room. The body was mummified, wrapped in newspapers from 2020 and bedding. The authorities also noted that Geanee's house was in "deplorable living conditions" with no running water. There were also buckets of human feces and urine throughout the house, reports People magazine.

Geanee insisted that her mother died of natural causes towards late 2020, but she decided to cover it up instead of reporting it. She has been charged with financial identity fraud for using the social security and disability money that was being deposited into her mother's account every month, and the abuse of a corpse.

The accused was arrested earlier this week, and is being held without bond at the Washington County Detention Center. She has yet to enter pleas to the charges. As of Wednesday, it was unclear if she was represented by a lawyer who could comment on the allegations against her.