Family burns body, collects checks 9 years

Associated Press
Dec. 5, 2006 12:59 PM


ST. LOUIS - Three relatives of a deceased northeast Missouri man admitted burning his body, then cashing his Social Security disability checks for nine years.

Betty Joanne McWilliams, 59, her 36-year-old son Kris McWilliams and her 39-year-old daughter Kimberly Ferguson face sentencing Feb. 27 after pleading guilty to embezzlement charges Thursday in U.S. District Court in St. Louis. In addition to possible jail time, the relatives must pay back about $133,000, U.S. Attorney Catherine Hanaway said.

All three were indicted by a federal grand jury in October.

"These three defendants bring a whole new meaning to greed," Hanaway said. "They not only burnt their father's body to disguise his death so that they could keep collecting his Social Security, they casually ate dinner while he was burning."

Larry McWilliams died in 1997 of natural causes near Lewiston, Hanaway said, and his wife and children then moved the body to a trash-burning area behind the home and burned the body to hide evidence of his death. Betty McWilliams tended the fire to make sure no bones were left unburned, according to Hanaway.

greedy bastards

that is sick .

Ohmigod ... that is so twisted. Gosh, what greed would make some people do ..

How do they know he died of natural causes if they burnt his body ? Maybe they killed him.

It's what he would have wanted.

This makes me think I've been going about this whole legitimate job thing the wrong way...

What a sick family!! This just disgusts me unbelievably that this mans wife and children would be so disrespectful as to burn his body to nothing and use his death to collect money.
I've heard of similiar cases like this happening. So what I think the government should do is have a person check into the offices every 6 months or once a yr. for a interview which would be sort of like a confirmation that they are still alive so this doesn't happen again. I blame the government for this. The government surely couldn't have been this dumb for this to have gone on for 9 yrs. when they could have prevented it.

For not doing "are they still alive?" checks?

The government didn't light the fire that burnt this guy's body up. And personally I don't want the government calling around my house asking if everyone's okay. Besides they'd probably have to outsource to India for the phone workers.