Woman kept Ardmore grandmother in freezer for over 16 years in benefits scam, police say

A Pennsylvania woman was charged Wednesday with hiding her grandmother’s remains in a freezer so the dead woman's Social Security checks would continue.

State police say they charged Cynthia Carolyn Black of York Haven with abuse of a corpse, theft and receiving stolen property.

Police were summoned to a home in Dillsburg in February 2019, to investigate a body in a freezer.

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Investigators used DNA to help determine that the remains were those of Glenora Reckord Delahay, born in 1906.

State police say the 61-year-old Black told them she found her grandmother dead in their home in Ardmore more than 16 years ago, but kept her body in a basement freezer. 

She is alleged to have told investigators she moved the corpse, still inside the freezer, to Dillsburg in 2007, and that she used the federal Social Security payments to cover the mortgage.

A clerk at district court in Dillsburg said Wednesday Black had not been arraigned there and that there was no lawyer on record for her. Black did not appear to have a listed phone number.

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