Eric Pfeiffer

This story in the Washington Post today is both sad and strange. Veronica King and her son Steven King left their 70-year-old relative alone after she fell. Worse, after Mary Coleman was deceased, neither Veronica nor Steven called Wisconsin police to report the death because, and instead left Coleman’s body hidden in the basement, because, in Steven’s words, “we had other things to do that day.”

And part of that busy schedule apparently included spending funds from Coleman’s Social Security funds. It sounds too extreme for any sane family to make such a reckless decision. And in fact, further down in the story, it’s revealed that a 2009 search warrant found that Steven King, “had a number of untreated mental illnesses, including schizophrenia, obsessive-compulsive disorder and Asperger’s syndrome.” Still, that has to be the first story I’ve ever read about pizza that didn’t have a happy ending. The Kings have been charged with first-degree reckless homicide, hiding a corpse and recklessly subjecting an individual at risk to abuse.