Thieves ‘ransacked’ dead man’s home as body decayed for months, Missouri sheriff says

A woman stopped in a stolen truck with meth led to the discovery of a much larger — and gruesome — theft case that could lead to dozens of arrests, Missouri authorities say.

“This is one of those cases that as law enforcement we encounter far too often that shocks the conscience,” Lincoln County Sheriff Rick Harrell told Lincoln News Now.

After police in the small eastern Missouri city of Elsberry learned the pickup truck was stolen, they went to the owner’s home in a rural part of the county, the news outlet reported.

There, investigators found skeletal remains of a man inside a vehicle parked in the garage and the home was “ransacked” by thieves aware of his death, Harrell told KMOV.

“Certainly it seems like a group of criminal opportunists, when they found out about this body, they had just ransacked the residence and taken many items,” Harrell told KMOV. “We’ve recovered stolen vehicles, stolen firearms and tens of thousands of dollars in other related items.”

The sheriff doesn’t know the first person to learn of the man’s death, but thieves spread the information to others who descended upon the home, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.

“At least six people walked by the body,” Harrell told the newspaper. “Everything on the property was up for grabs because the person was deceased, so they started cleaning him out.”

Investigators are tracking financial transactions by the man to determine when he died, KMOV reported. His identity hasn’t been released.

The man is believed to be estranged from his family in another state and splits time between the home and another residence in the area, so his disappearance didn’t worry neighbors, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported. Looters stole from both of his residences, the newspaper reported.

At least two dozen people are suspected of stealing from the man’s home, Lincoln News Now reported.

“It was just based off of greed,” Harrell told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “Human greed.”

This story was originally published January 26, 2021 at 3:46 PM.