A man called authorities after learning his sister hid their mother’s death from authorities for a decade, California police said.
After the death of his 58-year-old sister, the out-of-state man went to the Ukiah home his sister formerly shared with their mother to “attend to estate matters,” the Ukiah Police Department said in a news release posted May 8 on Facebook.
The man last spoke with his mother, who “had been in poor health,” in 2013, and his sister told him their mother died in August 2013, according to police. She told him their mother’s remains were taken to a “medical research facility” per her wishes.
The woman continued to live at the home, police said.
While at the home, the man found “numerous financial documents in his mother’s name,” including some that showed “recent banking and checking account activity,” police said.
“This was odd as his mother’s accounts should have been closed for approximately ten years,” police said.
He called police about his suspicions on April 24, police said.
While investigating, police said they found “there was no official record of the mother’s passing, such as a death certificate.”
Documents found at the home supported the idea that the woman never reported her mother’s death “to keep her mother’s accounts open” so she could use her mother’s money, police said.
Police said they also found skeletal remains while searching the property. These remains were identified as the mother, and the coroner determined she died of natural causes.
Police said that evidence showed the sister likely hid her mother’s death to “financially benefit via fraud.”
Given the sister’s death, a “lack of additional investigative leads and no evidence supporting a homicide,” the case was closed, police said.
Ukiah is about 115 miles northwest of San Francisco.